Loretto Hospital's embattled ex-CFO charged in $15M embezzlement scheme

A former Loretto Hospital executive who resigned amid a series of COVID-19 vaccination controversies in 2021 is accused in a new federal indictment of scheming with others to embezzle more than $15 million from the hospital.

Anosh Ahmed, 40, Loretto’s onetime chief financial officer, is charged with eight counts of wire fraud, four counts of embezzlement, 11 counts of aiding and abetting embezzlement and three counts of money laundering.

Also facing several criminal charges is Sameer Suhail, 47, the owner of a medical supply company who allegedly participated in the fraud along with Ahmed and Loretto’s then-chief transformation officer, Heather Bergdahl, 37, who has previously been charged in the case.

Loretto is identified in the indictment only as “Hospital A.” Prosecutors say their investigation is ongoing. Ahmed and Bergdahl hail from Houston, while Suhail lives in Chicago.

Their arraignments have not been scheduled.

Controversy swirled around the hospital in 2021 after Block Club Chicago reported it had vaccinated employees at Trump Tower — where Ahmed had a condo — and held another event at Geneva Seal Fine Jewelry & Timepieces — a high-end Gold Coast watch store that he frequented — rather than residents of the Austin community that Loretto serves.

The news broke when COVID-19 vaccines were new, highly coveted and promised a return to normal a year into the pandemic.

However, the criminal charges against Ahmed, Bergdahl and Suhail revolve instead around an alleged embezzlement scheme that lasted between 2018 and 2022.

The three allegedly prepared and submitted requests for vendor payments that falsely claimed the hospital owed money for goods and services it had not received.

They directed the money to entities they controlled and prompted the hospital to make payments through its computerized vendor payment system, according to the indictment.