The Republican Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton celebrated New Year's Eve in the United Arab Emirates with two Americans who had left the country after being indicted on federal charges, The Wall Street Journal reported. The publication said that footage it had obtained showed Paxton welcoming in 2025 from a high-rise balcony in Dubai with Anosh Ahmed and Sameer Suhail. A federal court in Illinois indicted Ahmed and Suhail in 2024 on charges of embezzling $15 million from a Chicago hospital where Ahmed was chief financial officer.
Ahmed and Suhail are back in the United States to face the charges, which they have denied. Their attorneys said they had returned voluntarily, according to the Journal. Newsweek reached out to Ahmed and Suhail's attorneys and the Paxton campaign via email for comment.
Paxton, who has been endorsed by President Donald Trump, served three terms as Texas attorney general, and his tenure has drawn controversy. His rival for the Senate seat in the November midterms, Democratic state Representative James Talarico, has criticized Paxton for his travels, business ties, and wealth accumulated in office. The latest footage could complicate the Texan’s Senate election campaign.
The 37-second clip shows Paxton, his girlfriend Tracy Duhon, Ahmed, and Suhail watching fireworks light up the Dubai skyline. "In Dubai, Paxton and his girlfriend watched fireworks at a party with two fugitives who had failed to return to the U.S. to face federal healthcare fraud charges. One of them, Anosh Ahmed, had donated $190,000 to Paxton," Wall Street Journal reporter Elizabeth Findall wrote on X.
The paper said that details of the video were contained in court filings and were confirmed by people familiar with the matter. Ahmed is a physician from Houston and former chief financial and operating officer of Loretto Hospital on Chicago's West Side. Suhail, Ahmed's neighbor and business partner, ran private companies that received millions from the hospital, according to Block Club Chicago, which has investigated the pair's conduct.
Prosecutors have said the two worked together to embezzle $15 million from the taxpayer-funded hospital and received a separate $19 million worth of hospital contracts to Suhail through "corrupt" means, including bribery. Heather Bergdahl, Loretto's former chief transformation officer, and former hospital CEO George Miller are also charged. Prosecutors said Ahmed worked with Bergdahl and Suhail to send vendor payments for goods and services the hospital never received.
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