NORFOLK — Chesapeake Regional Medical Center was arraigned Tuesday on health care fraud and conspiracy charges stemming from years of surgeries and procedures performed by one of its former surgeons.
Will Newman, a New York attorney who represents the hospital, entered not guilty pleas to both charges for his client. Newman also asked the court to set the case for a jury trial. No officials from the medical center appeared with him at the hearing, held in U.S. District Court in Norfolk.
The hospital was indicted earlier this month on multiple fraud and conspiracy charges relating to a former obstetrician and gynecologist who performed surgeries, procedures and baby deliveries there for more than three decades.
The indictment alleges hospital officials had repeatedly been warned by staff members that Dr. Javaid Perwaiz was performing unnecessary work on patients and fraudulently billing insurance companies, but allowed him to continue because of the many millions of dollars he brought in for the facility.
AP
This undated file photo provided by Western Tidewater Regional Jail, in Virginia, shows Dr. Javaid Perwaiz.
In November 2020, a jury in U.S. District Court in Norfolk found Perwaiz guilty of all charges. He was sentenced to 59 years in prison.
Several women testified during the nearly monthlong trial about having to undergo surgeries they later realized weren’t necessary. Some testified the doctor told them they had cancer when they didn’t, and some had procedures done that they hadn’t consented to.
The hospital’s indictment alleges officials knew Perwaiz’s privileges had been terminated by another local hospital for performing unnecessary surgeries, and yet they continued to grant them to him every two years, from 1984 to shortly before his arrest in 2019. The officials also knew that he pleaded guilty to federal fraud charges, and was sued several times by patients, the document said.
Jane Harper, jane.harper@pilotonline.com
