Convicted cancer doctor Farid Fata asks for early release

Convicted cancer doctor Farid Fata is again requesting release on humanitarian grounds. He insists that he suffers from a rare blood disease that could lead to death if he is not released from prison soon. He also says he is a changed person who shows “sincere remorse” for the harm he has caused his patients.

“He has shown remorse to every soul affected by his crimes, as his past is no longer a part of him,” Fata explains in a petition he himself submitted to the court.

Fata has been in prison for 11 years after pleading guilty to a health care fraud scheme that involved injecting healthy patients with chemotherapy and over-medicating others as they were dying — and collecting more than $17 million in fraudulent billing. He was sentenced to 45 years in prison for crimes that the government says harmed more than 500 patients.

The formerly well-known Oakland County doctor had previously requested release on humanitarian grounds, but a federal judge, a prison warden and an appeals court rejected his requests.

So he tries again, claiming that he will die if he doesn't come out and that he is not a threat to society.