After allegations arose nearly two years ago, a respected Texas surgeon has been charged with manipulating some of his patients’ medical records to make them ineligible for organ donations, federal prosecutors announced on Thursday.
The indictment, which was handed up last month, accused the surgeon, John Stevenson Bynon Jr., 66, of making false statements in the medical records of five patients between February 2023 and March 2024. The statements cut the patients off from liver donations for months without their knowledge, according to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas.
At the time, Dr. Bynon was the director of the abdominal organ transplantation and the surgical director for liver transplantation at Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center in Houston, the document said.
Of the five patients listed in the indictment, three died. The other two received liver transplants at different hospitals.
Dr. Bynon appeared on Thursday in a federal courthouse in downtown Houston, where he pleaded not guilty to five counts of making false statements in health care matters, said Samy Khalil, a lawyer for Dr. Bynon.
In a statement, Mr. Khalil described Dr. Bynon as a “good, honest and extraordinarily talented organ transplant surgeon” who has saved thousands of lives over his career.
“This is not about a true or false questionnaire; it’s about filtering out organ offers until the patient is medically suitable to undergo a lengthy, complicated and risky organ transplant surgery,” Mr. Khalil said. “No responsible doctor would allow a patient to undergo such a surgery until the time is right and the surgery is medically appropriate.”
Jason Hudson, the acting special agent in charge of the F.B.I.’s Houston field office, said in a statement that Dr. Bynon’s alleged actions manipulated “the patients’ chance of survival.”
“Ultimately, at the center of this case are vulnerable patients who hung their hope of survival on a nationally renowned surgeon now federally charged for manipulating their medical records,” Mr. Hudson said.
According to the indictment, one of the patients, identified only by the initials C.C., was activated on a liver transplant wait list in March 2023 while under Dr. Bynon’s care. Prosecutors say Dr. Bynon altered C.C.’s medical records, making C.C. ineligible to receive a donor organ offer for approximately 149 days, even as C.C. continued receiving other health care benefits and services as if he were eligible. C.C. died in February 2024 while still under Dr. Bynon’s care, the document said.
Another patient, identified in the indictment as R.O., was activated on a liver transplant wait list in February 2023 while under Dr. Bynon’s care but was ineligible to receive an organ offer for 69 days, according to the indictment. Prosecutors allege that Dr. Bynon corrected his false statements in R.O.’s medical records on Dec. 22, 2023, restoring his eligibility for an organ offer. R.O. died hours after a failed liver transplant surgery four days later, the indictment said.
Memorial Hermann-Texas Medical Center in Houston suspended its liver and kidney transplant programs in April 2024 after the allegations against Dr. Bynon surfaced. The Associated Press later reported that the hospital reactivated its transplant program a year later.
Federal prosecutors said in a news release that patients, their families and other members of their medical care teams were unaware that Dr. Bynon was altering records in ways that made patients ineligible to receive donor organ offers.
A trial date is scheduled for April 6, Mr. Khalil said.
If convicted, Dr. Bynon faces up to five years in federal prison and a maximum fine of $250,000 on each count, prosecutors said.
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