Officials: Ex-doctor lied about record on license applications
Jan. 16—Among the accusations facing an East Hartford pediatrician as he surrendered his medical license in December were that he had lied on two license renewal applications by denying that he had been convicted of felonies; officials maintain that he had felony convictions in both years at issue.
LICENSE SURRENDERED
FORMER DOCTOR: Sheikh Ahmed, 59
PRACTICE: East Hartford Medical Center, a pediatric practice on Burnside Avenue, still in operation
ALLEGATIONS: Generally track state and federal criminal cases against Ahmed, adding allegations that he lied about the convictions in those cases on annual license renewal applications
That information comes from a statement of charges in two state Department of Public Health cases against Sheikh Ahmed that the department released to the Journal Inquirer.
Ahmed, who has listed a home address in Orange, operated a medical practice known as East Hartford Medical Center at 580 Burnside Ave. Despite Ahmed's Dec. 20 surrender of his license to practice medicine, East Hartford Medical Center remains in operation, advertising itself online as a pediatric practice.
The two-page document Ahmed signed to surrender his medical license is available via Connecticut's eLicense website.
It says that if Ahmed seeks to reinstate his medical license or obtain a new license, the allegations in two "petitions" filed against him by the DPH staff "shall be deemed true." The petitions aren't available through the eLicense website and the department's public affairs office failed to respond to requests for them from the JI.
The JI requested the allegations under the state Freedom of Information Act and, after filing a complaint with the Freedom of Information Commission, received them last week. Many of the allegations in the DPH charges appear to track the allegations in the state and federal criminal cases in which Ahmed was convicted.
In the state case, Ahmed was convicted of health insurance fraud. On July 12, 2018, a Superior Court judge put him on probation for two years, with the possibility of up to three years in prison if he violated release conditions, court records show.
In the federal case, Ahmed pleaded guilty on Nov. 7, 2019, to illegally prescribing the opioid pain medication oxycodone and failing to pay the IRS over $117,000 in taxes for five of his businesses. Yet, on medical license renewal applications dated May 22, 2019, and May 8, 2020, Ahmed answered "no" to questions about whether he had been convicted of a felony since his last renewal, according to the DPH charges.
Ahmed may have had a defense available with respect to the 2020 renewal application. A criminal conviction doesn't "vest" until the defendant is sentenced, and Ahmed wasn't sentenced in the federal case until Sept. 29, 2020, federal court records show, meaning that his denial of a recent criminal conviction in the May 2020 license renewal application was technically accurate.
In the federal case, Judge Victor A. Bolden sentenced Ahmed to six months in prison, but his prison surrender date was postponed repeatedly due to his vulnerability to COVID-19. The ultimate surrender date was Sept. 15, 2021, federal court records show. U.S. Bureau of Prison records show that he was released on Feb. 2, 2022.
The Connecticut eLicense website shows that Sheikh Zeeshan Ahmed is licensed as a registered nurse in East Hartford. However, records released by DPH in response to the JI's FOI request show that this isn't the former doctor.
Sheikh Zeeshan Ahmed's license application lists a birth date in February 1990, making him 32, while the former doctor's license application lists his middle name as Irfan and his birth date in May 1963, making him 59.
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