TWO INSURANCE companies have secured High Court orders requiring a surgeon and his wife to repay €730,000 paid to them after it was falsely claimed the wife had breast cancer.
Dr Emad Massoud (52), Woodview, Brownstown, Ratoath, Co Meath, and his wife Gehan Massoud (45), a nurse, were found guilty by a jury last February of defrauding Scottish Provident Ltd of €685,658 on March 25th, 2002. They were also convicted of defrauding New Ireland Assurance Co plc, trading as Lifetime Assurance Company Ltd, of €45,338 on February 22nd, 2002, from The two companies yesterday obtained summary judgment from the High Court requiring the Massouds to repay €730,999. The Massouds were not represented.
Dr Massoud, who had worked as a consultant surgeon with the Wellman and Nobel Clinics in Eccles Street, Dublin, was jailed for four years over the false cancer claim while his wife received a suspended three-year sentence.
During their three-week trial, the Dublin Circuit Criminal Court heard the Massouds used a tissue sample from Gehan Massoud’s mother who had been diagnosed in Egypt as having breast cancer.
The jury was told another surgeon named by the couple as having carried out a lumpectomy on Mrs Massoud, involving removal of tissue about the size of a golf ball, had denied he had performed that surgery.
Dr Massoud claimed that he himself had removed 237g of tissue, including a tumour, from his wife’s breast. He said he had done this himself and it was not performed by a colleague as was fraudulently stated and signed on the insurance claim forms.
When the larger claim for €685,658 was paid out, it was lodged to the couple’s mortgage lender, Permanent TSB, but was not used to pay off their mortgage and was in fact put into their current account, the trial heard.
The smaller claim, for €45,338, was transferred electronically to a joint account they held in the Bank of Ireland, Letterkenny.
Imposing sentence last March, Judge Pat McCartan said this was “a particularly evil and nasty offence” carried out to satisfy the greed of two people well capable of supporting their family.
In the High Court yesterday Mr Justice Peter Charleton said he was satisfied the money had been paid out on the basis of a fraud and that the Massouds had notice of the companies’ applications.