The federal case towards a Texas physician accused of illegally leaking {that a} Houston hospital was secretly performing transgender surgical procedures on youngsters was dropped Friday — weeks earlier than trial was set to start.
US District Choose 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 revealed a report in Metropolis Journal displaying the hospital was performing so-called “gender-affirming” procedures on youngsters a minimum of by way of 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 youngsters 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 supply any rationalization for why prosecutors needed 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.
Choose Hittner permitted the request in an order issued later Friday.
Haim’s authorized group stated the dismissal “fully vindicates” their shopper and famous that the feds cannot ever revive the case towards the physician.
“The United States has finally agreed to drop the case against Dr. Haim, and the Court just granted dismissal,” stated protection legal professional Marcella Burke stated.
“The fight against the evils he exposed continues, but this dismissal represents a repudiation of the weaponization of federal law enforcement and the first step in accountability for the misdeeds we have all witnessed in 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 legal professionals argued in court docket papers final yr that prosecutors had information proving that he’d truly continued treating sufferers at TCH into 2023 and by no means illegally accessed affected person data.
Haim has maintained that he was merely blowing the whistle on the hospital breaking Texas legislation.
The Southern District of Texas US Lawyer’s workplace didn’t instantly return a request for remark Friday afternoon.
