Medical Malpractice Lawyers

A Case That a Cancer Misdiagnosis Attorney in Cleveland Rarely Encounters: Intentional Misdiagnosis

As any cancer diagnosis attorney in Cleveland will tell you, misdiagnosing cancer is not always a case of negligence. In some cases, it is a punishable crime that deserves jail time, not to mention financial restitution to the victims involved. A doctor in Michigan recently received a 45 year prison sentence for intentionally misdiagnosing cancer in hundreds of healthy patients purely to bill them for his services and line his own pockets.

Prosecutors originally sought a 175 year prison sentence for Dr. Farid Fata, according to the Wall St. Journal. Fata pleaded guilty to Medicare fraud last year. Authorities suspect more than 500 people suffered through the intentional misdiagnoses. More than 150 alleged victims filed impact statements in court.

“I’m here because I don’t want this to happen to anyone else,” Marietta Crabtree testified in court. Her husband, Donald Crabtree, died of kidney cancer at the age of 79 after receiving what his family claims was improper chemotherapy treatment to treat a case of lung cancer that actually did not exist. “We trusted him and we never thought that we couldn’t.”

The cancer misdiagnosis was blatant and intentional.

“Fata single handedly designed the fraud, which necessitated fooling his own employees and professional staff,” federal prosecutors contended in a court memorandum.

Most cases a cancer misdiagnosis attorney in Cleveland comes across are the result of negligence. Rarely are they an intentional act. Nonetheless, any case of misdiagnosis can be deadly, either in delaying treatment or resulting in patients receiving chemotherapy for cancer they do not actually have, ironically resulting in giving them a deadly cancer.