Another Person Connected To Loretto Hospital Charged In $200 Million COVID Test Scheme

Jul 01, 2025

CHICAGO — Another person with ties to Loretto Hospital has been charged with fraud, with prosecutors saying he was part of a scheme to try to get more than $200 million from the federal government through fake COVID-19 testing.

Jamil Elkoussa, 35, is charged with five counts of wire fraud, according to an indictment that was unsealed Monday.

The charges are the latest in a string of high-profile scandals for people with ties to Loretto, a safety-net hospital on the West Side. Earlier in June, prosecutors revealed former CFO and COO Anosh Ahmed had been charged as part of a conspiracy to defraud the government of nearly $300 million through fake COVID-19 testing.

Ahmed was also charged in 2024 with defrauding the hospital out of $15 million with his friend, business partner and Trump Tower neighbor, Sameer Suhail.

Notably, Elkoussa worked for Suhail, including at a company connected to Loretto.

Elkoussa’s charges go back to March 2021. Elkoussa, then living in suburban Orland Park, owned Meridian Medical Staffing and was its president, prosecutors wrote in the indictment.

Elkoussa paid people connected with Meridian collection sites to pretend the sites had workers collecting COVID-19 test specimens from people when “minimal to no specimen collection or testing” actually happened there, prosecutors said. Elkoussa sent data for people who did not exist to a lab, pretending their information corresponded to specimens that Meridian sent to the lab for testing, prosecutors said.

The lab Elkoussa worked with then submitted $233 million in fraudulent claims to the federal government, seeking reimbursement for COVID-19 tests — even though Elkoussa knew the tests had not actually been collected from patients, prosecutors said.

About $154 million was paid to that laboratory, prosecutors said. The lab sent about $60.3 million to an account controlled by Elkoussa. Elkoussa sent money from that account into other accounts he owned, as well as to the bank accounts of family members and friends, prosecutors said.

Elkoussa then gave tax forms to his friends, family and associates to make it appear as if the payments to them were for “legitimate” work, prosecutors said.

An arrest warrant was issued for Elkoussa, but it was not immediately clear if he was in custody.

Block Club has reported extensively on troubling conduct at Loretto Hospital under Ahmed, including how it provided millions in contracts to companies owned by Suhail. One of those companies was SKS Healthcare Management Group.

In late March 2021, just days after Ahmed resigned from Loretto amid Block Club’s reporting, Suhail was removed from the state corporate registration and a new individual replaced him as president and registered agent: Elkoussa.

Elkoussa had also been listed as an executive on websites for some of Suhail’s medical companies, including American International Clinical Group, and a Suhail umbrella firm named United Healthcare Investment Group.

Two and a half weeks after Elkoussa took charge of SKS, on April 11, he was charged with felony reckless discharge of a firearm after he shot a gun in his home and the bullet hit a family member in the chest, according to Cook County criminal court records.

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In March 2021, when vaccines were still rare and highly sought-after, Block Club reported that Trump Tower had vaccinated its staff, claiming it was part of a program meant to help residents of the West and South sides, which had been gravely impacted by COVID-19.

In a series of stories, Block Club revealed the vaccinations had been set up by Ahmed, who’d also bragged that he’d vaccinated Eric Trump, son of President Donald Trump. Further stories showed Loretto had also vaccinated people at a luxury Gold Coast jewelry shop that Ahmed frequented and people at an upscale steakhouse he ate at.

The hospital also vaccinated people at CEO George Miller’s suburban church, and a doctor with ties to Loretto vaccinated his suburban-based family with does from the hospital.

Ahmed resigned within days, and the city took control of the hospital’s doses in an attempt to ensure they would go to the people who needed them most.

Block Club, with the Better Government Association, then raised questions about the Suhail companies that were awarded millions of dollars in contracts under Ahmed’s leadership, but Loretto repeatedly declined to say whether Ahmed had disclosed the potential conflict of interest. It also declined to answer questions about whether Loretto was working with any other Suhail companies.

One of the hospital’s most prominent supporters during the scandal was state Sen. Kimberly Lightford, the Illinois Senate majority leader and vice chair of Loretto’s board. She repeatedly criticized Block Club’s reporting and defended then-CEO Miller.

Block Club and the Better Government Association showed the hospital and its leaders were facing several investigations, including FBI probes.

Miller left Loretto in April 2022 amid the investigations.

Then, in May 2024, former hospital executive Heather Bergdahl was charged with embezzling $500,000 from the hospital during the COVID-19 crisis. Ahmed and Suhail were charged with defrauding the hospital of $15 million that July, and, in October, prosecutors said Miller had accepted $770,000 in bribes to funnel hospital contracts to companies run by Suhail.

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