Local Back Surgeon Charged With Fraud Seeks Jail Release

YPSILANTI (AP) - The rigors of working at a car wash left Tonocca Scott with a bad back. Yet he was confident the pain from bulging discs would go away when a charismatic Detroit-area doctor proposed surgery.

"He had swagger off the charts," Scott said of Dr. Aria Sabit. "His hair was pulled back. He could have been a guy in a James Bond movie. Why would I go to anybody else?"

But 18 months later, the 40-year-old said he's in worse shape. Scott wears a back brace reinforced with duct tape and keeps painkillers within reach at his apartment in Ypsilanti.

And Sabit? The doctor is charged with fraud in federal court in Detroit, accused of billing insurers for bogus procedures and deceiving patients about how he planned to fix their spines. He surrendered his medical license in California last summer after similar malpractice allegations. And in a separate action, the government is suing Sabit in Los Angeles over alleged kickbacks received for using certain spinal implants.

Sabit, 40, has been in custody since Nov. 24. Prosecutors fearing he could flee the country will ask a judge Thursday to keep him locked up. But defense lawyers said he's not a risk.

"He is focused on his family and assisting counsel in vigorously defending himself against these charges," they said in a court filing.

Dr. Jeffrey Fischgrund, a spine surgeon at Beaumont Hospital, said he's aware of other Detroit-area doctors who have been trying to help Sabit's former patients.

"How you can go through years and years of training and then do something like this - I can't even comprehend it," Fischgrund said.

The criminal complaint against Sabit describes allegations of malpractice involving five patients, but the FBI believes there are many more who learned their back surgery wasn't the procedure promised by the doctor.

Scott is among them. He sought relief after injuring his back through repeated twists, turns and lifts while working at a car wash. He said Sabit offered to fix things with a spinal fusion in June 2012.

"I never completely healed," Scott told The Associated Press. "I had tingling in my toes, behind my right leg and into my buttocks. I told him it feels like my blood is boiling in my legs."

Sabit prescribed painkillers, and Scott had trouble getting more appointments as his recovery stalled. Finally, another doctor looking at medical records and images of his back found the fusion wasn't performed.

During an interview Wednesday, Scott could sit only for a few minutes because of discomfort. He wears a back brace with a DVD case taped inside to keep his spine straight. He said he may need more surgery if injections to block nerves don't work.

Scott graduated at the top of his class at a technical school in 2012 but health woes have prevented him from landing a job in computer technology. A plaque honoring his two years of perfect attendance is displayed in the living room.

His fear in the years ahead: life in a wheelchair.

"I can just feel the rubber in my hands," Scott said of the wheels.

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