(Crain’s) — Abbott Laboratories hired a cardiologist as a sales consultant who had been banned from working at a hospital last year because he allegedly inserted hundreds of heart stents into patients unnecessarily, Senate investigators say, according to a report.

The Senate investigators say in a report to come out Monday that there was a close relationship between North Chicago-based Abbott, which makes stents, and Dr. Mark Midei, who worked at a hospital in the Baltimore area, according to a story in the Wall Street Journal.

Abbott told the paper that its relationship with Dr. Midei ended earlier this year and declined to provide specifics of the relationship. The company said in the Journal report that the Xience stent, an Abbott product, sells well because of its “superior data and patient benefits.”

Dr. Midei denies the allegations of the hospital, St. Joseph Medical Center in Towson, Md., and has sued it, saying his career has suffered “irreparable damage,” according to the report.

The doctor didn’t get extra money from the hospital based on stents, and Abbott gave him “nothing extraordinary,” his lawyer told the paper.

In May 2009 the doctor was banned from practicing at the hospital, the paper says. St. Joseph told the paper it fully cooperated in the investigation and that it acted quickly to safeguard patients by barring the doctor last year after it concluded he performed hundreds of procedures that were not necessary.

Early this year the Baltimore Sun had reported allegations of stent overuse by the hospital and Dr. Midei, according to the report.