The federal case towards a Texas physician accused of illegally leaking {that a} Houston hospital was secretly performing transgender surgical procedures on children was dropped Friday — weeks earlier than trial was set to start.
US District Decide David Hittner signed off on prosecutors’ request to throw out all 4 felony counts accusing Dr. Eithan Haim, 34, of accessing affected person information from Texas Youngsters’s Hospital (TCH) beneath false pretenses and offering them to conservative journalist Christopher Rufo in 2023.
Rufo then printed a report in Metropolis Journal exhibiting the hospital was performing so-called “gender-affirming” procedures on children at the very least via Could 2023, regardless of asserting it had stopped providing surgical procedures and puberty blockers a yr earlier.
The preliminary announcement adopted Texas Lawyer Basic Ken Paxton issuing an opinion in February 2022 declaring intercourse change procedures in children a type of baby abuse.
The dismissal request “with prejudice” was made in a single-page joint movement filed by the feds with Haim’s consent.
The movement didn’t provide any clarification for why prosecutors wished to drop the case with trial set to start on Feb. 10.
Haim confronted as much as ten years behind bars if convicted and sentenced to the utmost on all counts.
Decide Hittner authorised the request in an order issued later Friday.
Haim’s authorized group stated the dismissal “totally vindicates” their shopper and famous that the feds cannot ever revive the case towards the physician.
“The US has lastly agreed to drop the case towards Dr. Haim, and the Court docket simply granted dismissal,” stated protection lawyer Marcella Burke stated.
“The struggle towards the evils he uncovered continues, however this dismissal represents a repudiation of the weaponization of federal regulation enforcement and step one in accountability for the misdeeds we’ve got all witnessed on this case.”
Prosecutors claimed that Haim — a surgeon who carried out a part of his residency at TCH — accessed medical information after he stopped treating sufferers there in 2021.
However Haim’s attorneys argued in courtroom papers final yr that prosecutors had information proving that he’d really continued treating sufferers at TCH into 2023 and by no means illegally accessed affected person info.
Haim has maintained that he was merely blowing the whistle on the hospital breaking Texas regulation.
The Southern District of Texas US Lawyer’s workplace didn’t instantly return a request for remark Friday afternoon.
Supply hyperlink
