A Houston doctor has been charged with falsifying the medical records of five patients, making them ineligible to receive liver transplants, federal prosecutors announced Thursday.
Dr. John Stevenson Bannon Jr. was indicted by a grand jury in Houston last month on five counts of making false statements related to health care matters.
Bannon is accused of making false statements in his role as surgical director for abdominal organ transplants and liver transplants at Memorial Hermann Health System in Houston.
Three of the five patients detailed in the indictment announced on Thursday have died and two have been successfully transplanted to different hospitals.
The patients, their families, and other members of their medical care team were unaware that Bannon allegedly made false statements in their medical records, according to court records.
“Dr. Bannon is accused of betraying the most sacred duty of a medical professional — to heal,” U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganzei said in a statement. “He stole years and kept hope from those who falsified records and prevented patients from receiving organ transplants.”
Bannon’s attorney, Sami Khalil, told reporters outside federal court after the doctor’s preliminary court appearance Thursday afternoon that Bannon is a talented organ transplant surgeon who has performed more than 2,000 transplants in his 40-year career.
“Nothing he did was illegal. Everything he did was legitimate and in good faith,” Khalil said. “We look forward to clearing his name in a court of law and, frankly, educating the government on the medical concepts that underlie this completely, utterly misleading prosecution.”
Memorial Hermann Health System and UTHealth Houston, which employs Bynon, did not immediately respond to emails requesting comment.
The U.S. attorney’s office in Houston, in the indictment and in a news release, did not detail why Bannon allegedly changed the patient records. Angela Dodge, spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney’s office, declined to comment.
After the allegations against Bannon first became public in April 2024, Memorial Hermann closed its liver and kidney transplant programs. Memorial Hermann reactivated its transplant program a year later.
Families of several patients who died while waiting for liver transplants have sued Bannon in Houston civil court, wanting to know if their loved ones were denied liver transplants because of Bannon’s actions. Cases are pending.
The indictment alleges Bannon altered the records of five patients between March 2023 and March 2024.
One patient was ineligible to receive a donor organ offer for approximately 149 days and died under Bannon’s care in February 2024, according to the indictment.
Another patient was ineligible to receive a donor organ offer for approximately 69 days and died during surgery to receive a new liver in December 2023.
A third patient in need of an “urgent liver transplant” died in December 2023, two days after Bannon accused the patient of being “severely restricted” or “functionally unfit to receive a life-saving donor organ offer”.
Two other patients underwent successful liver transplants at other hospitals.
If convicted, Bannon faces up to five years in federal prison for each count.
In February 2025, the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, which administers the country’s organ donation program, declared Memorial Hermann a member not in good standing. The designation is the most serious action a transplant network can take and tells the public that one of its members has demonstrated a serious lapse in patient safety or quality of care.
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