DMC and Henry Ford failed to protect patients from 'sexual predators,' lawsuit says

New — A law firm has filed two class-action lawsuits in Wayne and Macomb counties on behalf of victims and potential victims of Rochester Hills doctor Oumair Aejaz, who police say sexually abused hundreds or thousands of patients and other people in the nude and took photos and videos of them.

Aejaz has been charged with capturing images of five naked adults and children. Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard said more charges are likely to follow.

“This is, and I can’t stress this enough, so much the tip of the iceberg,” Bouchard said at a news conference in August. “This individual is potentially one of the worst I’ve ever seen. Because there’s no specific category. It’s not just children, it’s not just women, it’s not just men. … The victimization is so broad and the perversion is so great that we’re just beginning to wrap our arms around it.”

More: Sheriff: Charges Against Oakland County Doctor for Filming Naked People ‘Tip of the Iceberg’

Police found thousands of videos in Aejaz’s home, recorded in bathrooms, hospital rooms, locker rooms, closets, bedrooms and bathrooms over the course of six years, Bouchard said. Most of the possible victims had not yet been identified at the August news conference.

The class-action lawsuits filed by the law firm Stinar Gould Grieco and Hensley and the law firm Bailey Glasser identify two women who saw Aejaz in 2023, attorney Parker Stinar said Tuesday. The lawsuits are against Aejaz as well as Detroit Medical Center Sinai-Grace Hospital and Henry Ford Macomb Hospital, both of which did not immediately return calls for comment Tuesday morning.

“Unfortunately, medical institutions in Michigan have once again put profits before people and negligently provided a platform for a doctor to sexually abuse and exploit patients for his own sexual gratification,” Stinar said at a news conference Tuesday.

The lawsuits allege that the hospitals gave Aejaz unfettered and unsupervised access to patients, allowing him to sexually abuse and film thousands of people.

The Henry Ford lawsuit involves an unnamed Chesterfield Township woman who was a patient of Aejaz in May 2023 for back pain. She ultimately underwent back surgery and spent time in the hospital recovering. The Sinai-Grace lawsuit involves an unnamed Detroit woman who visited Aejaz in August 2023 for a regular pregnancy checkup and was concerned about her asthma.

The lawsuits allege that both women were admitted without their consent or knowledge while they were patients, and were unaware that this was allegedly happening until news of Aejaz’s arrest broke in August, the lawsuit says.

“The Jane Does who filed complaints turned to DMC and Henry Ford Macomb for safe and appropriate medical care,” Stinar said. “These facilities provided these patients with a sexual predator.”

Stinar and attorney Symone Shinton encouraged Aejaz’s patients to come forward to them and the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office, even though they do not know whether they were filmed or abused while in his care.

“Only with your courage can we identify as many survivors as possible and hold accountable the institutions that should have noticed and addressed this pattern and practice of abuse of women and children,” Shinton said.

Aejaz was arrested on August 8 and charged in Oakland County on August 13 with producing child sexual abuse material in August 2023, five counts of using computers to commit a crime, and four counts of distributing or capturing images of an unclothed person. The charged activities range from 2020 to 2023.

If found guilty, Aejaz could face sentences ranging from five years in prison for taking photographs of a naked person to seven years for using a computer to commit a crime and 20 years in prison for child sexual abuse.

In August, Aejaz’s lawyer, Mariell Lehman, did not respond to a request for comment.

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