Doctor caught up in Loretto Hospital embezzlement scandal returns to Chicago from Dubai to face charges
A doctor who owned multiple medical supply companies has returned to Chicago from overseas to face criminal charges for his role in a fraud scheme at Loretto Hospital that also led to charges against former hospital executives.
Sameer Suhail appeared in federal custody Wednesday in a 17th-floor courtroom at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse. U.S. Magistrate Judge Beth Jantz told him he could expect to be released later in the afternoon on a $5 million bond and into home confinement.
Federal authorities agreed to the arrangement, Assistant U.S. Attorney Kelly Guzman told the judge. The prosecutor said Suhail was taken into custody around 4 p.m. Tuesday.
Adam Sheppard, Suhail’s defense attorney, told reporters that Suhail returned to the United States voluntarily, traveling from Dubai into O’Hare Airport. During the hearing before Jantz, Sheppard entered a not guilty plea on Suhail’s behalf.
Suhail is charged in a 45-count indictment along with former Loretto executives George Miller, Anosh Ahmed, and Heather Bergdahl. It alleges that Ahmed, Suhail and Bergdahl schemed to put their hands on more than $15 million in hospital funds by submitting bogus documents claiming Loretto owed vendors for goods and services the hospital actually had not received.
Suhail also is accused of a scheme involving Ahmed and Miller to steer hospital business to Suhail’s companies.
In all, Suhail faces six counts of wire fraud, six counts of aiding and abetting embezzlement, a kickback conspiracy and two counts of money laundering, Guzman told Jantz.
Ahmed, the hospital’s onetime chief financial officer who resigned in 2021 amid a series of COVID-19 controversies, was arrested in Serbia on Nov. 30, 2025. He has yet to return to Chicago to face charges.
Bergdahl, the hospital’s former chief transformation officer, is expected to plead guilty, court records show. Miller, the hospital’s former chief executive, is set to plead guilty April 30.
The troubles at Loretto date back to 2021, when Block Club Chicago reported that the hospital vaccinated employees at Trump Tower, where Ahmed had a condo.
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