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CHICAGO — Loretto Hospital’s former CEO has joined the list of ex-executives there charged in a large conspiracy to get millions from the safety-net hospital, prosecutors said.
George Miller was indicted by a federal grand jury with conspiracy to commit bribery, prosecutors announced Friday. They say he accepted more than $769,000 in return for sending contracts worth millions to companies run by Sameer Suhail.
Former Loretto CFO Anosh Ahmed; Heather Bergdahl, Loretto’s former chief transformation officer; and Suhail, Ahmed’s friend, neighbor and business partner, are also facing various charges, with prosecutors saying they separately were involved with defrauding $15 million out of the hospital.
Ahmed and Suhail have fled and are working in Dubai, while Bergdahl was arrested while on a plane about to take off for Dubai. Miller did not respond to a request for comment Friday.
The federal charges came after a Block Club Chicago investigation that began with allegations Ahmed funneled hard-to-get vaccines early in the pandemic to his neighbors at Trump Tower and to workers at high-end businesses he frequented, while Miller ensured his suburban church was vaccinated. The vaccines were meant for the city’s most at-risk residents.
Friday’s indictment superseded earlier indictments for Bergdahl, Ahmed and Suhail.
Miller, as CEO, worked with Ahmed to award hospital contracts worth millions to companies owned or operated by Suhail, knowing that they’d then get a cut of the proceeds behind the scenes, prosecutors said.
Miller and Ahmed awarded the contracts without putting them up for bids and while hiding from the hospital’s board that Suhail was behind the companies, prosecutors said.
Between Oct. 18, 2018, and June 1, 2019, Ahmed and Miller ensured at least three contracts were awarded to companies affiliated with Suhail, according to the indictment. As part of that deal, the hospital sent at least $19 million to Suhail-controlled bank accounts between October 2018 and March 2022, prosecutors said.
Two of Suhail’s companies — American International Clinical Group and Shenzhen Medical Supplies — also charged Loretto more than $3.6 million for goods that were not actually provided, prosecutors said.
In April 2021, when a Loretto employee emailed Miller to inform him the hospital’s auditors were asking for verification that Shenzhen had given Loretto the goods it was supposed to, Miller wrote back, “We have the inventory. I will sign that documents that we have that amount of inventory,” according to the indictment.
On June 5, 2019, Ahmed texted Miller, telling him money he’d receive as part of the deal, prosecutors said: $5,000 monthly for one part of the conspiracy, an additional $2,000 monthly for another part, $1,000 monthly for a third part and $4,000 per month for a fourth part of the deal.
As part of the bribery plan, Suhail would transfer large amounts of money to a bank account controlled by Ahmed, and Ahmed would then give a fraction of that money to Miller — for example, on Feb. 7, 2019, Suhail sent about $74,000 to Ahmed’s account, and Ahmed gave a check for $11,000 to Miller the next day, according to the indictment.
About two weeks after Ahmed left the hospital — resigning amid the vaccine scandal exposed by Block Club — Suhail then directly sent $3,500 to an account controlled by Miller, prosecutors said.
In all, Miller received more than $769,000 in bribes, prosecutors said.
Loretto Hospital has faced several shakeups and FBI investigations since Block Club’s reporting.
Starting in March 2021, Block Club revealed the hospital was funneling vaccines meant for underserved areas of the West Side to ineligible people at Chicago’s Trump Tower, where Loretto’s then-chief financial officer, Ahmed, lived, and at a luxury jewelry store and high-end Gold Coast steakhouse where Ahmed hung out. Then-CEO George Miller’s suburban church also received vaccines.
Block Club then partnered with the Better Government Association to show Ahmed’s friends won contracts worth $4 million from the nonprofit hospital while Loretto board members took hospital-funded Caribbean trips, among other benefits.
The Loretto Hospital investigations led to FBI and state probes, the resignation of Ahmed, the end of Miller’s leadership at the hospital and prompted the city to take over vaccine distribution to ensure doses went to West Siders who were struggling to get shots instead of the rich and powerful.
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