A metro Detroit doctor spent more than three years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit.

In 2007 a woman working at Dr. Labeed Nouri’s Hazel Park medical office for only five days accused him of sexually assaulting her.  

The accusations changed the orthopedic specialist’s life. He was charged with two counts of fourth degree criminal sexual conduct and first degree criminal sexual conduct in addition to serving prison time. “I lost my medical license at one point, but that wasn’t my concern. I was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in prison,” Dr. Nouri said in a interview with The Arab American News (TAAN). 

Dr. Labeed Nouri back to work at his medical office in Sterling Heights after a woman employed at his former practice in Hazel Park accused him of sexually assaulting her. Dr. Nouri spent more than three years in prison because of the fabricated story.  PHOTO: Natasha Dado/TAAN

TAAN will not disclose the woman’s name until she is charged with a crime. Dr. Nouri says during the recording the man confesses that he’s worried about perjury charges being filed against them. Responding, the accuser says she plans on pretending to be suicidal, have psychotic problems and must be hospitalized in an effort to stop the investigation. 

On tape the accuser admits collecting money from Dr. Nouri was her and the man’s initial plan. She says it’s the right time to sue Dr. Nouri since he obviously still had money if he was paying his lawyers. “She told him it was his idea to get money from me in the beginning, so why didn’t he want to do it now?” Dr. Nouri said. The accuser tells the man he must cooperate with her or they will both go to jail, and if officials question her about why there are credit card charges made at motels she’ll say her friend borrowed the card. 

The Oakland County Prosecutors office must now authenticate the tape to determine whether the voices are in fact the accuser and her former boyfriend.  Once the tape was released, however,  Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper dropped felony charges against Nouri and sought his release from prison when she learned of the perjury. She said she is awaiting police reports before deciding whether to file any charges against the woman.

“We moved heaven and earth to get him out immediately when we learned of this,” she is quoted in the Detroit Free Press as saying. 

Dr. Nouri, 40, is not the first Chaldean doctor to be accused of sexual assault by a Chaldean woman. A similar case against a Chaldean dermatologist was dropped after evidence proved the woman made up similar claims.   

During the alleged incident the woman, who was 19 at the time, claimed Nouri sexually assaulted her after work hours by pulling her pants down and penetrating his fingers into her vagina and touching other body parts. 

The defense has argued that the woman fabricated the story because she needed a reason to explain why she wasn’t a virgin anymore. In the Chaldean community women often feel pressured to remain virgins until they are married. The woman’s former boyfriend says he was sleeping with the woman months before she made the accusations and that she was also sexually involved with other men. 

Additional evidence that could have prevented Dr. Nouri from going to prison was ignored by the jury and prosecution. Records presented by the defense show that Dr. Nouri was on the phone at the time the woman claims he sexually assaulted her. But the jury ignored the evidence and followed their gut instincts.  “During that time I was absolutely doing something else,” he said.  “Is that the kind of criminal system we have in this country? They just disregarded the evidence and just went with their guts. Their gut of course that I’m a foreigner and I’m from the Middle East.” 

The woman’s case became suspicious when she refused to get a rape exam after the alleged incident.  “That should have been a red flag right there,” Dr. Nouri said.

Copies of a series of unusual letters submitted to Oakland County Judge Mark Goldsmith and allegedly written by a Chaldean priest, the woman’s parents and close friends were obtained by TAAN. The letter from Fr. Zuhair Kejbou of St. Joseph Chaldean Catholic Church in Troy had a forged signature. When confronted about the letter Kejbou said he never wrote it.

 Every letter pushes Judge Goldsmith to sentence Dr. Nouri to an extreme extent. 

Nouri points out that the letters are all in the same format and the signatures look identical — indicating they were all written by the same person. The same signature block is used on the letters, dates are in the same place and in two a very similar passage appears. 

Despite the suspicion in the appearance of the letters, Oakland County Assistant Prosecutor Hala Jarbou never bothered to verify them before they were submitted to Judge Goldsmith.    

The letter from the “friend” reads: “……. is the type of person who will put everything on the side to care for other people. She is the type of person you would see in the street giving some pocket change to the poor, the person who will open doors for the elderly, and the person who will volunteer her Saturday mornings at her local church parish.” The letter continues with a passage that resembles another statement made in a different letter. 

“Elementary school teachers teach the students to tell an adult if anyone hurts them or touches them inappropriately, and that is what …… did.” The letter from the mother reads: “My daughter did what the school taught her and that is to come up front and tell the authority when you get raped.”

Dr. Nouri was also the subject of false rumors because of the accusations.  He says relatives of the woman said he had earned the reputation for being a distrustful doctor when he had his own practice in Jordan, which isn’t true because he only completed his residency there. 

Nouri’s wife and four young children suffered too, carrying the burden of the surreal nightmare. 

His children didn’t see him while he was in prison because anyone under 18 was prohibited from visiting.

 His son exhibited mental breakdowns because of the case and needed to be professionally evaluated. In every visit to see her husband, Dr. Nouri’s wife would cry. He says the visits were frustrating because there was always a glass wall preventing him from making physical contact with his wife. “I want to hug her. She’s my wife. I want to talk to her. It makes me more frustrated, and then anytime she comes, she has a psychological breakdown, so I told her don’t come. Every time I called her after the visit she was sick,” Dr. Nouri said.  

While he was in prison his two practices in Hazel Park and Sterling Heights remained closed and the only source of income his family had was Dr. Nouri’s life savings.  “I just survived with whatever I saved during my life. Thank God it was enough for those three years to maintain the standard me and my wife lived.” Dr. Nouri sold the building in Hazel Park where the alleged incident occurred in order to pay for legal fees. 

In prison Dr. Nouri was verbally and physically abused by other inmates. “I was assaulted by all those murderers and criminals. They hit you and punch you. Sometimes three of them coming at you at the same time.” 

Dr. Nouri is getting his life back on track. “We suffered but we are putting ourselves back together.”  He says his practice is doing well and he has about 30 patients a day. Some of the women who were employed in his office before the accusations were made  came back to work for him. 

 Surprisingly, Dr. Nouri says he has no resentment. “I’m moving on. I have kids and family. I can’t just keep beating myself up for what happened to me or I’m not going to be able to move on.” 

Dr. Nouri has received about 700 signatures from the Chaldean community and others requesting that the woman be charged with perjury. He wants her to get charges for perjury, obstruction of justice and filing false letters. “Just let her be charged. Everyone knows what she did-so she doesn’t do it to anyone else.”