Ex-Loretto Exec Gets Deal That Could Keep Her Out Of Jail 20%
By Kelly Bauer19%
7/14/2026, 8:11:54 PM
BS Summary: This article contains 20 faulty reasoning types, including Unattributed Quote, Post Hoc (False Cause), and Fundamental Attribution Error, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 45.2% saturation with 418 hits. Analysis detected 1,496 faulty-reasoning hits from 924 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 34.3% and a BS Rank of 20% (17,077 of 21,171 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 80.70% of the article peer group.
CHICAGO — A judge has signed off on a deal that could allow an ex-Loretto Hospital executive facing federal fraud and embezzlement charges to avoid prison.
And deals are expected for two other people charged in the case, prosecutors said at a hearing Tuesday before U.S.
District Judge Robert Gettleman.
Prosecutors have said former Loretto CEO George Miller and former Chief Transformation Officer Heather Bergdahl were part of a plan, with former CFO Anosh Ahmed, that led to tens of millions of dollars being embezzled from the safety-net hospital on the West Side.
Bergdahl was charged with 14 counts of wire fraud, 21 counts of embezzlement and one count of money laundering.
Miller was charged with conspiracy to commit bribery.
Bergdahl and prosecutors have agreed on a deferred prosecution agreement — a type of agreement where, if Bergdahl follows the terms outlined in it, the government will dismiss charges against her in about a year.
Prosecutors did not detail the conditions Bergdahl must meet during Tuesday’s court hearing.
Loretto Scandal Stories
As Illinoisans scrambled to get sought-after COVID-19 vaccine appointments, Block Club exposed a scandal: Many of Loretto Hospital’s doses were going to ineligible people with ties to administrators.
Then our team dug deeper to reveal questionable conduct at the taxpayer-funded hospital.
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Miller is expected to come to a similar agreement with prosecutors in the next two to three weeks, with Gettleman setting his next hearing for July 30.
A third defendant — Sameer Suhail — is also expected to reach a deal with prosecutors before trial, MacArthur said Tuesday.
Suhail returned to Chicago in April ; he had moved to Dubai shortly before the charges against him were announced.
Anosh, the fourth person facing charges in the case, remains in custody in Serbia, MacArthur said Tuesday.
He had also been living and working overseas before he was taken into custody in the fall.
It’s not clear when or if he will be extradited to the United States, MacArthur told Gettleman.
Prosecutors from another case in which Ahmed is charged have said he is fighting extradition.
The federal charges came after a Block Club Chicago investigation that began with allegations that, early in the pandemic, Ahmed funneled hard-to-get COVID-19 vaccines to his neighbors at Trump Tower and to workers at high-end businesses he frequented, while Miller ensured members of his suburban church were vaccinated .
The vaccines were meant for the city’s most at-risk residents.
Prosecutors have alleged Ahmed, who was in charge of managing Loretto’s finances, schemed with Bergdahl and Suhail to send payments to companies for goods and services not actually provided to the hospital.
Many of the companies were created by Suhail and Ahmed under various names “to conceal their association with the companies and the fraudulently obtained payments they would receive from” the hospital, according to the indictment.
Miller, as CEO, worked with Ahmed to award hospital contracts worth millions to companies owned or operated by Suhail, knowing that they would then get a cut of the proceeds behind the scenes, prosecutors said.
They said Miller accepted more than $769,000 for awarding the contracts.
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 have said.
Bergdahl also issued checks from Loretto to businesses created by Ahmed while knowing they had not provided goods or services to Loretto for those payments, prosecutors have said.
“Bergdahl issued these funds to [Ahmed], and [Ahmed] took these funds, both knowing that the funds had been embezzled from the hospital,” according to the criminal complaint.
Ahmed hired Bergdahl, and it appeared they knew each other before that from living in Houston, according to the criminal complaint.
After Ahmed resigned in March 2021, Bergdahl continued at the hospital — and issued $486,540 in checks from the hospital to companies where Ahmed was the CEO, according to the complaint.
Broadview Six Fallout
In a separate case, Ahmed is accused of defrauding the federal government of about $300 million through reimbursements for fake COVID-19 testing.
Prosecutors have said Ahmed used personal data from Loretto’s patients as part of that “scheme.”
Prosecutors recently dropped charges against two of the defendants in that case as part of the fallout from the “Broadview Six” prosecution .
The defendants, Mahmood Sami Khan and Suhaib Ahmad Chaudhry, had pushed a judge to dismiss the charges against them based on concerns a U.S. attorney had acted improperly during grand jury proceedings.
In response, Judge Sharon Coleman ordered an evidentiary hearing in the case — which could have forced U.S.
Attorney Andrew Boutros and others to the stand to answer questions about alleged prosecutorial misconduct during grand jury proceedings.
The U.S.
Attorney’s Office then dropped charges against the two and avoided the evidentiary hearing.
A fourth defendant in that case, Mohamed Sirajudeen, has also been in talks to reach a plea deal.
He did not join in the motion to dismiss the charges, with his lawyer saying at a June hearing that they’re still working to reach a deal with prosecutors.
He had a hearing Monday where attorneys said those talks are still in progress.
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