A Virginia doctor is now facing more than four centuries worth of jail time after he was convicted on 52 counts in relation to his defrauding of insurance programs and performing surgeries on his patients that they do not need.
The doctor was identified as 70-year-old Javaid Perwaiz, an OB/GYN in Virginia who has practiced medicine for at least four decades. According to the Eastern District of Virginia's U.S. Attorney's Office, Perwaiz, whose arrest both shocked and confused his patients, now faces a maximum sentence of 465 years in jail.
The sentencing of the Virginia doctor is set to happen on March 31, 2021. Lawyers from Perwaiz's camp did not give any response when asked for comments.
In a report by Fox News, FBI Norfolk field office's acting special agent, Karl Schumann, condemned the acts of Perwaiz, stating that doctors have taken an oath to do no harm to their patients.
According to him, Perwaiz broke this oath and deliberately caused pain, anxiety, and complications to his patients, and also assaulted personal parts of their lives.
He also called out Perwaiz for robbing some of his patients of their future.
Last fall, the FBI arrested Perwaiz after they found in an investigation that he has been doing a health-care fraud scheme which included diagnosing his patients using broken equipment and falsely telling them that they had cancer, then performing surgery on them. He has been carrying out said scheme since at least 2010.
As the announcement of his criminal case happened, authorities emphasized that Perwaiz's many past patients were oblivious of his wrongdoings.
Read also: Teen Girl Survives Fatal Party, Friends Gunned Down, Pretends to Be Dead
Perwaiz's track record is also not clean. In the 1990s, he was convicted of felony tax fraud. In addition, in the 1980s, he received a disciplinary letter from the Virginia Board of Medicine who called him out for bad note-taking. This was after he got fired from a hospital as he was accused of performing 11 hysterectomies without any medical reason, Daily Mail reported.
Since his arrest, hundreds of women whom he treated have requested their medical records from law enforcement. At least 29 of those women were specified in the documents submitted to the court.
On top of these, his other patients have also reached out to attorneys who handle medical malpractice and have sought other doctors for medical advice on the validity of their care.
However, those patients who the FBI has not formally identified as victims still believe that the conviction was not enough for the closure that they are seeking.
One of the patients, Karen Lane, a 53-year-old long-time patient of Perwaiz who has had her ovaries removed, stated that she was glad that he could not do it to others. Yet she still feels that Perwaiz was not prosecuted for the injustice that was done to her.
Lane also added that the FBI never called her back, and malpractice attorneys that she approached refused to take her case since it happened very long ago, The Washington Post reported.
According to authorities, Perwaiz is likely motivated by greed since it was found that he purchased luxury items and high-end cars in the duration of his practice.
Related article: Brazil Halts COVID-19 Vaccine Trials by China's Sinovac Biotech After the Death of a Participant
