Former Loretto Hospital executive Anosh Ahmed was in custody overseas when his COVID-19 testing fraud case exploded in controversy earlier this year, so his arraignment at Chicago’s federal courthouse on Monday was the first time the judge got a look at him.
“Good morning, how are you?” U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman told Ahmed, who stood before her in an orange jail jumpsuit and shackled at the ankles.
“I’m doing well,” Ahmed replied.
“Good, good. Nice to see you here in the flesh with your lawyers,” Coleman said.
All niceties aside, Ahmed’s not-guilty plea to the 15-count fraud and money laundering indictment finally set the legal clock ticking toward a trial, more than two years after Ahmed left Chicago for Dubai as a massive federal investigation swirled around him.
While Ahmed was fighting extradition from a jail in Serbia, the federal prosecutor who headed the investigation was accused of misconduct before the grand jury that indicted him, as well as in the “Broadview Six” case that collapsed in spectacular fashion in May.
On Monday, Ahmed’s lawyer, Dan Webb, told the judge they were trying to resolve the controversial case with a plea deal “reasonably quickly.” Webb said they would likely be coming back to court in the fall, either to ask for a change of plea hearing, or for a renewed motion for an evidentiary hearing into prosecutorial misconduct.
“We’ll know that soon,” Webb said.
Meanwhile, Ahmed has waived his right to a detention hearing and will remain in custody.
The investigation in Loretto was sparked after the West Side safety net hospital came under fire for improperly doling out COVID-19 vaccinations soon after the shots became available. In 2021, following reporting by Block Club Chicago and WBEZ, Loretto admitted it had improperly vaccinated workers at Trump Tower in downtown Chicago and had also improperly given shots to Cook County judges at a time when the vaccines were still scarce.
In 2024, Ahmed and three other former Loretto executives, including CEO George Miller Jr., were accused of embezzling at least $15 million from the hospital over a five-year period, including at the height of the pandemic, by causing payments to vendor companies for purported goods and services that they knew had not been provided.
By the time those charges were filed, Ahmed and another co-defendant, Sameer Suhail, were already in Dubai, which has no formal extradition treaty with the U.S..
Last year, prosecutors brought another indictment charging Ahmed and three others with stealing tens of millions of dollars in government reimbursements over a two-month period in 2021 for COVID-19 tests that were mostly never performed.
So far, only one conviction has come out of the sweeping fraud investigation that led to the indictments: Chicago lab owner Mohamed Sirajudeen, who is cooperating with prosecutors, pleaded guilty earlier this month to helping Ahmed run the COVID fraud scheme.
The U.S. attorney’s office dismissed all charges against two others accused in the fraud scheme after Coleman threatened to hold an evidentiary hearing into the alleged grand jury misconduct.
Meanwhile, Miller and another former Loretto executive, Heather Bergdahl, have entered into generous deferred prosecution deals that will leave them without a conviction and kept any admissions related to their conduct from being publicly filed.
Charges against Suhail are pending.
Coleman had previously denied efforts by Ahmed’s lawyers to join in a motion for an evidentiary hearing because of his status as a fugitive, but said they were free to renew the effort once he was back in the jurisdiction.
In a potential attempt to stave off any such hearing, the U.S. attorney’s office last week secured a superseding indictment in the COVID fraud case that names only Ahmed and largely mirrors the previous allegations. The move renders the original indictment that had been the subject of grand jury issues legally obsolete — though the judge could still opt to dig into any alleged wrongdoing.
The most serious counts against Ahmed in the COVID case call for up to 20 years in prison if he is convicted. Prosecutors also are seeking forfeiture of more than $50 million in cash seized from various accounts related to Ahmed, as well as two Rolls-Royces, a Lamborghini, a Mercedes and three luxury properties in Houston.
He’s also pleaded not guilty in the other fraud case, which is pending before U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman.
