Ex-Loretto Hospital executive Anosh Ahmed and his contractor pal Sameer Suhail — who fled the U.S. amid accusations they stole millions of dollars from the hospital — reportedly celebrated New Year’s Eve last year while on the lam alongside Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general who is now locked in a battle for U.S. Senate.
The Chicago business partners were among the guests at a luxury high-rise gathering where Paxton and his girlfriend watched fireworks over Dubai’s Burj Khalifa skyscraper to welcome 2025, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.
Since October 2022, Ahmed had donated $190,000 to Paxton, including $25,000 days after he was indicted in the Loretto case, according to campaign finance records.
In 2024, prosecutors indicted Ahmed and Suhail on federal charges, accusing them of working together to embezzle $15 million from Loretto, a taxpayer-funded safety-net hospital in Austin, and steering another $19 million worth of hospital contracts to Suhail through “corrupt” means, including bribery. Ahmed also faces separate federal charges accusing him of participating in a COVID-19 testing fraud scheme to defraud the federal government of nearly $700 million. The charges came after a series of Block Club Chicago investigations put the spotlight on Ahmed and Suhail.
Both men fled the U.S. before charges were brought and lived in Dubai as fugitives while the cases were pending, Block Club Chicago previously reported.
Both men have since returned to the U.S. to face the charges. Ahmed is in custody, while Suhail’s attorney said civil matters had delayed his travel and that he returned voluntarily after those issues were resolved.
Ahmed and Suhail were arraigned recently at the Dirksen Federal Building in Chicago and pleaded not guilty after former Loretto hospital executives Heather Bergdahl and George Miller were removed from a superseding indictment. Prosecutors reached an agreement with Bergdahl and Miller this summer.
It was the first time Ahmed and Suhail had been seen publicly together since their arrests. Neither man acknowledged nor looked at each other very long despite sitting only a few feet apart. Ahmed was in a government-issued jumpsuit as he remains in custody at the Metropolitan Correctional Center Downtown while Suhail, who is out on bond, wore a polka-dotted navy-and-orange sports coat with black pants.
When asked about Suhail’s relationship with Paxton after the arraignment, Suhail’s attorney Adam Sheppard said his client was an “international man of mystery” who has many professional relationships with “prominent business and political figures.”
Ahmed, Loretto’s former chief financial officer and chief operating officer, resigned in 2021 after Block Club reported he had directed the hospital’s COVID-19 vaccines to well-connected people, including at Trump Tower and a Gold Coast steakhouse. He even said he had vaccinated President Donald Trump’s son Eric and posted a picture of the two standing together but later claimed he was joking.
Block Club’s subsequent investigations helped prompt a federal investigation into Ahmed and Suhail’s dealings with Loretto. Prosecutors allege the men worked together to embezzle $15 million from the hospital and steer another $19 million in contracts to companies controlled by Suhail through corrupt means.
Paxton defeated incumbent Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican primary after getting President Trump’s endorsement. Paxton has faced years of controversies, including a 2023 impeachment by members of his own party over allegations of abuse of office. He was acquitted by the state Senate.
The Journal reported that Paxton’s Democratic opponent, James Talarico, has made Paxton’s controversies, travel and wealth central to his campaign. Talarico has maintained a narrow polling lead, raising the possibility of a Democrat winning a statewide office race in Texas for the first time since 1994.
Paxton’s senior adviser, Nick Maddux, did not directly address questions about the Dubai gathering in a statement to the Wall Street Journal.
“Like President Trump, Ken Paxton has been politically persecuted for years, and every time, voters have seen through it and sent him back to office because they know he has always fought for Texas,” Maddux said in the statement to the newspaper.
As Ahmed, who is from Houston, lived abroad and with charges pending, Ahmed made increasingly opaque overtures to Trump and Republicans.
Ahmed’s most recent donation to Paxton, a Trump ally, came in July 2024 — just days after prosecutors unsealed the indictment charging Ahmed with embezzlement.
Reporter Manny Ramos contributed.