Cancer doctor: I was duped into guilty plea, toss my conviction

He sobbed at his sentencing and pleaded for mercy.

Yet three years later, convicted cancer Doctor Farid Fata is taking it all back, claiming he was pressured into pleading guilty to misdiagnosing people with cancer and over-treating them even though he didn't believe he was guilty. He still doesn't believe he's guilty, he says, and he wants his conviction tossed.

In a stunning about-face, Fata today asked the court to throw out his 2014 conviction and grant him a trial, which, he claims, is what he always wanted. He claims that his lawyer convinced him that he would lose at trial, that it would be in his best interest to plead guilty and that he could get a 20-year sentence as opposed to life if he did just that.

In the end, Fata got 45 years.

"(My attorney) enforced the idea of pleading guilty by leading me to believe that I would receive lenience by entering guilty pleas ... I pled guilty for this reason, only to later discover it was all for naught," Fata writes in his filing. "The idea of leniency and cooperation benefit was the catalyst that (my attorney) created to create a false glamour of not dying in federal prison. Had I been properly advised ... I would not have pleaded guilty and instead proceeded to trial as I had always intended to do."

Fata added: "My guilty pleas were not the result of my actually being guilty. From day one to the present, I have steadfastly maintained my innocence."

Fata asserts that had he gone to trial, he would have had the support of a medical professor from the University of Pennsylvania who "would testify with a reasonable defense and expectation of at least a chance of mistrial."

The attorney at issue is Christopher Andreoff, who denies Fata's claims.

"Dr. Fata voluntarily and knowingly tendered a plea of guilty to the various counts in the indictment," Andreoff told the Free Press on Tuesday. "I never, ever pressured Dr. Fata into pleading guilty."

Andreoff declined comment on specifics of the case, citing client-attorney privilege, noting only that he and and another defense lawyer had prepared for trial up through August 2014. Fata pleaded guilty the following month.

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The U.S. Attorney's office declined comment on Fata's request for a trial and said it would respond with a written filing in court.

The government has long argued that Fata is a greedy doctor who intentionally misdiagnosed and mistreated hundreds of patients to make money by fraudulently billing Medicare and insurance companies.

Fata himself admitted to some of this at his 2015 sentencing hearing.

"I misused my talents ... because of power and greed. My quest for power is self-destructive," Fata told the court before sentencing, claiming he was "horribly ashamed" of his conduct and that he prayed for repentance.

Fata was arrested in August 2013 after a whistleblower alerted authorities that the prominent Oakland County doctor was billing the government for medically unnecessary cancer and blood treatments. In 2014, Fata admitted to raking in more than $17 million from fraudulent billings and pleaded guilty 13 counts of health care fraud, two counts of money laundering and one count of conspiracy to pay and receive kickbacks.

Fata agreed to forfeit $17.6 million and a number of assets in the case.

He was sentenced to 45 years in prison in 2015. Fata, a married father of three and a naturalized U.S. citizen whose native country is Lebanon, has lost all appeals.

In Tuesday's court filing, Fata said that he wanted to retain attorney James Thomas -- who represented former Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick for years -- but that he couldn't afford him. Thomas wasn't readily available for comment.

Following Fata's arrest in 2013, the federal government seized many of his assets and set up an $11.9-million restitution fund, which was used to to help Fata's victims recover medical costs and other expenses. The whistleblower received $1.1 million.

The U.S. Attorney's Office had initially identified 553 victims, but noted there could have been more given that Fata's practice treated 17,000 patients through seven locations.

Contact Tresa Baldas: tbaldas@freepress.com Follow her on Twitter @TBaldas