A day after a national news report linked them to Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a former executive at Chicago’s Loretto Hospital and one of his top medical suppliers were arraigned on a superseding indictment alleging they stole almost $16 million from the small safety-net facility.
Anosh Ahmed, who served as chief financial officer at Loretto until 2021, and Sameer Suhail, a medical doctor who owned companies that did business with the hospital, each pleaded not guilty during a brief appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Maria Valdez.
Ahmed, 42, and Suhail, 49, each were charged in the third superseding indictment with counts of wire fraud, embezzlement, kickback conspiracy and money laundering. Ahmed also was charged separately with filing false tax returns. The allegations largely mirror those made in previous versions of the charges.
Their court appearance comes after the Wall Street Journal reported that Ahmed and Suhail had been captured on video partying with the scandal-plagued Paxton — who is running for U.S. Senate — and the married attorney general’s girlfriend at a New Year’s Eve 2024 celebration in Dubai. The report detailed a video taken by another partygoer that showed the group on a luxury high-rise balcony overlooking a fireworks display at the Burj Khalifa skyscraper to welcome 2025.
At the time, Ahmed and Suhail had been indicted in Chicago and were considered fugitives from U.S. justice. Ahmed was later hit with separate charges in Chicago alleging he ran a massive COVID-19 testing fraud scheme after he’d left Loretto and set up businesses in Texas.
The Wall Street Journal reported Ahmed has donated $190,000 to Paxton, including $25,000 days after he was indicted. Paxton, a longtime supporter of President Donald Trump who received the president’s endorsement in the Republican primary, is currently locked in a battle for the Texas Senate seat with Democratic candidate James Talarico.
After the hearing at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse on Tuesday, Suhail’s attorney, Adam Sheppard, called his client “an international man of mystery,” but declined to comment directly on Paxton or the Journal’s report.
“Dr. Suhail has many long-standing personal and professional relationships, including with prominent business and political figures,” Sheppard said.
Ahmed’s attorney did not comment.
The 38-page superseding indictment alleged Ahmed and Suhail conspired with former Loretto CEO George Miller, executive Heather Bergdahl and others to steer millions of dollars in hospital vendor payments to medical supply companies they secretly controlled, often for services that were never rendered.
In one instance, Ahmed and Suhail billed the hospital $34,000 for four copier machines and related products and falsified paperwork showing they’d been delivered to Loretto, when in fact the machines went to “various properties” controlled by Suhail in Illinois and Ahmed in Texas, the indictment stated.
Miller was indicted in 2024 with conspiring to accept checks and money transfers from Suhail in exchange for the award of contracts and other hospital business to Suhail’s companies. He allegedly accepted about $769,000 in bribes, prosecutors originally charged.
Both Miller and Bergdahl, Loretto’s former chief transformation officer and close friend of Ahmed’s, entered into pretrial diversion agreements earlier this year that will see conspiracy charges against them dismissed as long as they stay out of trouble for a year.
Those generous deals were reached after allegations of grand jury misconduct surfaced in May in the “Broadview Six” case against immigration protesters, which was handled by the same prosecutor who led the sprawling Loretto investigation.
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The indictment followed a federal investigation initiated after Loretto 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.
Miller, who was CEO of Loretto during that period, was first suspended and later left the hospital amid the fallout in 2022.
Both Ahmed and Suhail had left the country and were living in Dubai by the time the indictment came down, and warrants were issued for their arrests. Ahmed was taken into custody while traveling in Serbia last December and was brought back to the U.S. after eventually dropping his extradition fight.
Suhail returned voluntarily earlier this year.
Ahmed’s lead attorney, former U.S. attorney Dan Webb, has told judges in both cases they were working on a plea deal that would resolve the matters short of trial.