Ex-Tustin Doctor to Stand Trial Again for Mail Fraud : Courts: Jurors recently split 10-2 in favor of conviction, resulting in mistrial. Ivan C. Namihas is accused of billing for unnecessary treatments.
SANTA ANA — Federal prosecutors said Thursday that they will take former Tustin gynecologist Ivan C. Namihas to trial a second time on allegations that he defrauded patients by duping them into costly and unnecessary treatments.
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Namihas’ first trial on 10 counts of mail fraud ended in a mistrial Monday, with jurors split 10-2 in favor of conviction.
Assistant U.S. Atty. Jonathan Shapiro said his office decided to retry Namihas after he talked with jurors and reviewed evidence in the case.
“We’ll do all we can to make the case as clear and concise as possible so that the jury understands the issues and the court’s time is not wasted,†Shapiro said.
Namihas has denied any wrongdoing. Defense attorney Paul Meyer predicted that prosecutors again will fail to win a conviction, saying the evidence is confusing and factually weak.
“The original jury appeared to split over emotional, medical treatment issues. None of that constitutes mail fraud,†Meyer said. “If the emotion persists . . . we will likely end up with a similar result--another hung jury.â€
Namihas, once the subject of the largest-ever medical sexual-abuse investigation in California, is accused of duping six patients into believing they had deadly diseases, such as cancer and AIDS, and then using the mail to bill them and their insurance companies to defraud the patients of more than $9,000 worth of unnecessary laser surgery.
The California Medical Board revoked the 62-year-old physician’s license in 1992 after more than 160 former patients complained that he had sexually abused them. Prosecutors, however, did not press sexual assault charges against him, saying that the statute of limitations had expired in most of the cases and that they lacked corroborating evidence.
U.S. District Judge Linda H. McLaughlin ruled that the sexual-abuse allegations could not be introduced as evidence in the mail fraud trial.
Shirley Corbin, 66, a Namihas patient in the early 1970s who complained to the medical board that Namihas had sexually abused her, said Thursday that she is “elated†that Namihas will be retried.
“I’m just so excited because we want to put him in prison where he belongs,†said Corbin, who lives in Lemon Heights. “I was afraid they weren’t going to do it again.â€
Corbin, who sat through most of the first trial, said she will also attend the second trial. A hearing to set the date for the new trial is scheduled Monday morning.
The first trial included testimony from six former patients who said that Namihas told them they had diseases, including cancer, that later doctors and tests disputed.
Namihas testified that he told his patients they had precancerous conditions, not cancer, and that they must have misunderstood him.
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