Farid Fata, the Michigan doctor accused of administering unnecessary chemotherapy treatments to people who didn't need it, faces 175 years in prison this week as the sentencing portion of his trial kicks off.
Federal prosecutors are seeking the lengthy sentence for Fata, who pleaded guilty last September to 13 counts of healthcare fraud, two money laundering counts, and one count of
conspiracy to pay or receive kickbacks, MLive.com reported. The doctor's attorneys have requested a 25-year sentence from U.S. District Court Judge Paul Borman.
Authorities claim that Fata submitted hundreds of people — who were either terminal, in remission, or misdiagnosed — to unnecessary cancer treatments, the website noted.
The sentencing could last several days.
"Fata's crimes were so voluminous and overwhelming that the government does not have the resources to uncover every instance of his fraud and mistreatment," an assistant U.S. attorney stated in the case's sentencing memorandum, MLive.com noted.
U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade told the Detroit Free Press last September that Fata's case was "the most egregious" involving healthcare fraud that her attorneys had ever seen.
"In this case, we had Dr. Fata administering chemotherapy to people who didn't need it, essentially putting poison into their bodies and telling them that they had cancer when they didn't have cancer," McQuade told the Free Press. "The idea that a doctor would lie to a patient just to make money is shocking . . . Dr. Fata was unique in that he saw patients not as people to heal, but as commodities to exploit."
Prosecutors stated in court filings last week that they had received some 150 victim impact statements. Fata's attorneys asked the court to strike the written statements and not permit relatives to speak, stating that some may not be
victims as defined by law, the Detroit News reported.
Fata's attorneys also accused federal prosecutors in a motion of "providing unreliable or inaccurate information to the court," the Detroit News noted.