A Cardiac Surgeon Running to Expose the Largest Municipal Bond Securities Fraud in American History—And the Political Machine That's Covering It Up

On March 19, 2016, fifteen-year-old Harrison Willson died at Emory Healthcare following an experimental heart surgery that should never have been performed. Expert testimony later confirmed what Emory's own surgeons knew: the procedure violated the standard of care, was medically unnecessary, and carried catastrophic risks that were deliberately concealed from Harrison's family. Harrison's death wasn't an isolated tragedy. It was part of a systematic pattern of patient harm that Emory University has suppressed for nearly a decade to protect $4.2 billion in municipal bond securities, the largest securities fraud in American history.

Dr. Dale Shelton Deas Jr. is running for United States Senate in Alabama's May 19, 2026 Republican primary because he lost his career for exposing this fraud. As a cardiac surgery resident at Emory University, Dr. Deas served as the star expert witness in two major malpractice cases that threatened approximately $100 million in institutional liability. Rather than address the malpractice, Emory retaliated. The defendant surgeon was promoted to directly supervise Dr. Deas's training. Then, nine weeks before his original graduation date, a credential worth $750,000 to $800,000 annually, Emory manufactured peer review violations and terminated him on April 21, 2025.

But Dr. Deas's termination wasn't about his performance. It was about what he knew. During his training, Dr. Deas documented over a dozen preventable patient deaths, including Section 1557 civil rights violations, in Emory's cardiac surgery and thoracic transplant programs, deaths that were systematically concealed from federal investigators, bond investors, and the public. When Dr. Deas reported these deaths to the FBI, the Department of Labor, the HHS Office of Inspector General, the HHS Office of Civil Rights, and congressional representatives including entire committees, he discovered something far more sinister than medical malpractice: a coordinated criminal enterprise involving Wall Street's largest institutional investors, a Big Four accounting firm, six sitting United States Senators, and Alabama's conservative media establishment, all working together to suppress the truth and protect billions in fraudulent securities.

Between 2013 and 2025, Emory University issued thirteen series of municipal bonds totaling $4.2 billion. Every single Official Statement filed with bond investors omitted material facts that federal securities law requires to be disclosed. Emory concealed Harrison Willson's death. They concealed over a dozen additional patient deaths in their cardiac surgery and thoracic transplant programs. They concealed that their auditor, KPMG, had identified a "Significant Deficiency" in internal controls just twenty-four days before issuing $862.7 million in Series 2025A bonds on June 12, 2025. They concealed that John G. Rice, Chair of Emory Healthcare's Board, simultaneously serves as Lead Independent Director of AIG and Baker Hughes, creating irreconcilable conflicts of interest that allow him to suppress patient death disclosures to protect his overlapping insurance and energy services directorships.

Most damningly, Emory concealed that they had purchased political protection from the very senators who should have been investigating them. Between October 2024 and June 2025, Raymond Harbert's network, including his cousin Billy Harbert, an Emory Trustee whose construction company BL Harbert International holds over $17 billion in Navy contracts, funneled $3.1 million through two parallel channels to protect the fraud scheme. Senator Tommy Tuberville, Senator Katie Britt, and Congressman Gary Palmer all received coordinated contributions from Harbert-connected entities timed precisely to obstruct federal investigations, suppress whistleblower disclosures, and ensure the June 12, 2025 bond sale proceeded without disclosure of the underlying fraud.

A coordinated network of Alabama political donors, U.S. senators, and federal contractors orchestrated a sophisticated scheme to suppress whistleblower disclosure, launder illicit campaign contributions, and execute a $862.7 million fraudulent municipal bond sale, all while disguising the operation through a Federal Election Commission shell game. On September 23, 2024, Dr. Deas spoke to Congressman Gary Palmer's team over the phone discussing patient abuse, wrongful deaths, and civil rights violations at Emory Healthcare. The very next day, September 24, 2024, Tim Sheehy for Montana, its Treasurer Katie Wenetta of Helena, Montana, filed amended FEC Form 1 establishing joint fundraising architecture with Britt Senate Victory Committee, creating the legal infrastructure for Alabama-to-Montana money transfers. On September 30, 2024, Dr. Deas emailed Congressman Palmer's office with detailed evidence showing that the fraud and abuse at Emory Healthcare mirrored the same crimes discovered by an FBI investigation of Newark Beth Israel's heart transplant program in 2019, which was successfully prosecuted by the DOJ in 2025. Also on September 30, 2024, 23 Alabama elite donors all connected to Raymond Harbert coordinated transfers from Britt Senate Victory to Tim Sheehy for Montana, totaling $39,700. These 24-hour sequences, Dr. Deas’s first Palmer call (Sept 23) and Sheehy committee restructuring (Sept 24) plus Dr. Deas’s protected disclosure (Sept 30) and mass donor coordination (Sept 30) proves real-time monitoring of congressional whistleblower channels and immediate network activation.

The operational timeline proves premeditated criminal conspiracy through precise temporal coordination. On October 3, 2024, I sent a meeting request to Senator Tuberville's office documenting the fraud scheme. Tuberville never responded back, not even an acknowledgement. The very next day, October 4, 2024, Raymond Harbert transferred $1 million from 421 Office Park Drive in Mountain Brook, Alabama to a Montana shell PAC called "Leadership in Action," managed by Katie Wenetta in Helena, Montana, only one day after my protected disclosure to Senator Tuberville. Three days later, on October 7, 2024, Leadership in Action PAC immediately disbursed $850,000 to Club for Growth Action (85% pass-through rate), the endorsement vehicle Raymond Harbert used two decades ago to purchase political influence. On October 9, 2024, Dr. Deas received a phone call from Senator Britt's office, after he reached out to Britt less than two weeks before, assuring him he was "in good hands" with Palmer, a documented conspiracy admission proving inter-office coordination to suppress the disclosure. On October 16, 2024 and October 28, 2024, Raymond Harbert wired additional payments of $200,000 and $350,000 to Leadership in Action PAC, completing the $1.55 million total over 24 days. On October 31, 2024, exactly 28 days after the initial $1 million payment, Billy Harbert (Raymond's cousin) was appointed to Emory University's Board of Trustees, formalizing the quid pro quo arrangement and providing institutional control over the bond issuer.

The orchestrated dismantling of the audit trail reveals systematic obstruction occurring at strategically critical moments. On December 31, 2024, the original Britt Senate Victory Committee (FEC ID C00886440) was terminated with a token final distribution of just $23.21 to Britt For Alabama Inc, severing all documented connection to the October 2024 money laundering activities. Then, precisely 83 days later, one month after an FBI investigation of Emory opened in Houston on February 25, 2025, a new committee bearing the identical name "Britt Senate Victory" (FEC ID C00900472) was registered on March 24, 2025. The new entity listed the same treasurer (Kayla Glaze), the same address (421 Office Park Drive in Birmingham), and the same operational structure, but with a clean FEC identification number that obscured the original committee's compromised history. This maneuver violated 52 U.S.C. § 30102(e) (fraudulent misrepresentation of committee identity), § 30104(b) (failure to maintain continuous records), and § 30122 (conduit contributions).

The scrubbing was deliberate and revealing. The new committee removed Tim Sheehy (R-MT, Armed Services) from the participant list, eliminating the incriminating Montana connection to Katie Wenetta's money laundering infrastructure. In his place, the new committee added establishment senators Susan Collins (R-ME, Chair of Senate Appropriations), Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS, Chair of Military Construction-VA Appropriations), and Markwayne Mullin (R-OK, Armed Services and Appropriations member). This substitution was not administrative, it was a restructuring designed to concentrate control within the Senate Appropriations Committee structure itself. Notably, Britt, Collins, Hyde-Smith, and Mullin all serve as majority members on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, the exact same entities statutorily responsible for investigating whistleblower retaliation, HIPAA violations, transplant patient abuse, wrongful death claims, and civil rights violations.

The timing reveals consciousness of guilt. On August 14, 2024, Dr. Deas's wife filed the first federal complaint (HHS-OCR Case 24-585235) documenting that Emory had distributed her medical information and their son's medical information to three cardiac surgeons who were direct superiors to Dr. Deas, a clear HIPAA violation that remained unresolved and undisclosed. This complaint was pending before HHS-OCR when the Series 2025A bonds were issued on June 12, 2025, yet Emory's official bond statement contained zero disclosure of the pending HIPAA investigation or the civil rights complaint, constituting material omission securities fraud under Rule 10b-5.

Eight days before the bond sale, on June 4, 2025, a new HHS-OCR Director was appointed: Paula Stannard. Stannard transferred from Helena, Montana, where she had served as Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services Chief Legal Counsel, the same small city (population 34,729) where Katie Wenetta operates the money laundering infrastructure and where the original Montana shell PAC funneled the initial $1.55 million. More significantly, Stannard previously worked for Alston & Bird LLP at the Washington office from 2010-2016, specializing in regulatory compliance matters. Alston & Bird simultaneously served as Bond Counsel for Emory's Series 2025A municipal bonds sold eight days after Stannard's appointment, creating a direct conflict of interest under 5 C.F.R. § 2635.502 and 18 U.S.C. § 208. Two Trustee Emeriti at Emory University, John Latham and Ben Johnson III, worked at the Atlanta Alston & Bird office, further demonstrating the institutional interconnection between bond counsel, regulatory capture, and Emory's governance.

The dual-channel architecture deployed from March to June 2025 created redundant political protection at both state and federal levels. Between March 25, 2025 ($1.4 million) and June 6, 2025 ($150,000), the Harbert network funneled an additional $1.55 million, the exact same amount as the October 2024 channel, through NHA ACTION to the Senate Leadership Fund, a Mitch McConnell-aligned Super PAC, using the same 421 Office Park Drive compliance infrastructure managed by the Crosby Ottenhoff Group. On May 14, 2025, Billy Harbert contributed $12,000 to Team Katie PAC, his largest single personal donation in 25 years to anyone. On June 5, 2025, seven days before Emory's bond sale, BL Harbert International received a $2 billion Navy contract from NAVFAC Southeast (Armed Services oversight). On June 11, 2025, twenty-three other elite Alabama donors contributed $116,500 in a coordinated surge (5 standard deviations above the PAC’s daily mean for the year), creating market signal one day before bond issuance. On June 12, 2025, Emory Healthcare issued $862.7 million in fraudulent municipal bonds with zero disclosure of >15 federal investigations, Billy Harbert's conflicted board position, the $2 billion Navy contract awarded to his company one week earlier, or the $3.1 million in political protection payments. On June 19, 2025, the Crosby Ottenhoff Group billed the new Britt committee $4,720.70, one day before the distribution below, representing legal and accounting work structuring the criminal disbursement.

The bribery mechanism came full circle on June 20, 2025, when Senator Katie Britt's newly reregistered committee (C00900472) distributed $919,752.67 to multiple U.S. senators controlling federal oversight, its only major disbursement, representing 93.4% of all spending. Senator Susan Collins (Chair, Senate Appropriations Committee, HHS budget authority) received $257,295; Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith (Chair, Military Construction-VA Appropriations Subcommittee) received $243,646; Senator Markwayne Mullin (Armed Services and Appropriations member) received $242,363; and NRSC (Mitch McConnell's operation) received $169,120. Britt For Alabama Inc received $7,328.10. Forty-three days later, on July 24-25, 2025, those same three senators, along with 14 other GOP colleagues led by Katie Britt, co-signed a letter to OMB Director Russell Vought demanding the immediate release of $15 billion in NIH funds, protecting Emory Healthcare's approximately $500 million in annual NIH research allocations from federal audit or withholding. The temporal coordination is undeniable: payment on June 20, performance on July 24-25. 

This entire analysis on political protection organized through Emory constitutes bribery under 18 U.S.C. § 201, money laundering under 18 U.S.C. § 1956, obstruction of justice under 18 U.S.C. § 1505 and 1512, and RICO enterprise under 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c), establishing a coordinated criminal enterprise spanning nine months with precise payment-to-performance timelines proving quid pro quo at every stage.

Alabama's conservative media establishment has actively suppressed coverage of Dr. Deas's campaign and the underlying fraud scheme. This suppression is not accidental, it is structural. Caleb Crosby, who served as President and CEO of the Alabama Policy Institute from 2014 to 2023, founded 1819 News in October 2021 using institutional infrastructure funneled through API. Crosby is also the treasurer of multiple political action committees that processed Harbert network contributions during the exact timeframe of the fraud scheme, including payments documented in FEC filings that match the October 2024 and March-June 2025 money laundering channels.

Congressman Gary Palmer, who now represents Alabama's 6th Congressional District, served as President of the Alabama Policy Institute for 24 years before entering Congress in 2015. Palmer's tenure at API established the institutional infrastructure that Crosby later used to launch 1819 News. When Dr. Deas disclosed the fraud scheme to Palmer's office in 2024, Britt's staff assured him he was "in good hands" with Palmer, and then Palmer went silent after being given 90 minutes of Medicare fraud audio by Dr. Deas on June 11, 2025, refusing to respond to requests for whistleblower protection even as Dr. Deas faced active physical surveillance and witness tampering.

Yellowhammer News, Alabama's other major conservative outlet, is owned by Paul Shashy, who served as campaign manager for Senator Tommy Tuberville in 2020 and Senator Katie Britt in 2022. Shashy's ownership of Yellowhammer News creates a direct financial incentive to suppress any coverage that would damage Tuberville or Britt's political standing, particularly coverage of a $3.1 million bribery scheme that both senators participated in.

AL.com, the state's largest media outlet, has similarly refused to cover Dr. Deas's campaign or the fraud allegations despite repeated outreach and the availability of comprehensive documentation. The coordinated silence across all three major Alabama news outlets, 1819 News, Yellowhammer News, and AL.com, suggests deliberate suppression, not editorial discretion.

Dr. Deas has been erased from Alabama's political discourse by the same power structure that benefits from the fraud he's exposing. But the Constitution guarantees him the right to petition his government through the electoral process. That's why he's running for U.S. Senate: because when federal law enforcement refuses to investigate, when regulatory agencies are captured by the institutions they're supposed to oversee, and when the media refuses to report the truth, the ballot box becomes the only accountability mechanism left.

Alabama voters face a choice on May 19, 2026. You can elect another politician who takes corporate PAC money, accepts billionaire donations, and protects the special interests that fund their campaigns. Or you can elect a cardiac surgeon who lost his career for telling the truth, and who is now running for Senate to expose the largest municipal bond securities fraud in American history.

Dr. Deas accepts zero corporate PAC money. Zero billionaire donations. Zero special interest funding. Every single dollar comes from working Alabama families who believe that fifteen-year-old Harrison Willson deserved better. That over a dozen patients who died in Emory's transplant program deserved better. That Alabama families who are struggling to afford groceries, healthcare, and rent deserve a senator who will fight for them, not for the mega-donors who purchased protection from Tuberville, Britt, and Palmer.

This campaign is not about partisan politics. It's about institutional accountability. It's about whether we live in a country where hospitals can kill patients with impunity as long as they pay off the right senators. It's about whether bond investors deserve to know the truth about the securities they're purchasing. It's about whether a cardiac surgeon who testified against malpractice should lose his career while the corrupt institutions that harmed patients continue operating with billions in taxpayer funding and federal contracts.

Dr. Deas has already sacrificed his career for integrity. He's not stopping now. He's bringing this fight to the United States Senate, where he will demand criminal prosecutions under 18 U.S.C. § 10b-5 (securities fraud), 18 U.S.C. § 201 (bribery of public officials), 18 U.S.C. § 1512 (witness tampering), and 18 U.S.C. § 1962 (RICO violations). He will push for Department of Justice investigations into KPMG's knowing participation in securities fraud. He will demand antitrust review of Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street's coordinated proxy voting that kept John G. Rice in power despite his irreconcilable conflicts of interest. He will expose every senator, every institutional investor, and every complicit media outlet that participated in this fraud.

Exhausted by institutional failure, Dr. Deas and his spouse reported the complete fraud scheme to FBI Special Agent Kathryn Cordes at the Atlanta Field Office on November 3, 2025, strategically locking in a protected 120-day window under Dodd-Frank Act Section 21F (SEC Whistleblower Protection Program) for filing a comprehensive SEC Tip, Complaint, and Referral (Form TCR). Section 21F provides anti-retaliation protection for whistleblowers disclosing securities fraud to federal authorities, shielding Dr. Deas from further retaliation while preserving his ability to pursue civil remedies. They disclosed active physical surveillance of their residence, reported threats against their family, discussed senators taking bribes, and presented evidence of a coordinated cover-up protecting billions in fraudulent securities transactions.

Tomorrow, January 31, 2026, Dr. Deas is filing the comprehensive SEC TCR documenting every element of this fraud scheme within the precise 120-day statutory protection period established by Dodd-Frank Section 21F. The SEC TCR submission includes audio recordings of witness tampering (attorneys explicitly instructing Dr. Deas to destroy evidence), FEC campaign finance records showing coordinated contributions from Harbert entities to Tuberville, Britt, and Palmer, Form N-PX proxy voting records proving institutional investor coordination, KPMG audit findings identifying the "Significant Deficiency" that was concealed from bond investors, Official Statements from all thirteen bond series omitting material facts, federal investigation disclosures from the FBI, HHS-OIG, HHS-OCR, Department of Labor, OSHA, EEOC, and congressional committees, and temporal correlation analysis proving the October 2024 and March-June 2025 payments were directly tied to Billy Harbert's board appointment, the June 12 bond sale, the June 5 Navy contract award, and the July 24-25 senatorial performance.

This is not conspiracy theory. This is documented federal crime with quantifiable investor harm estimated between $2.7 billion and $4.1 billion across the thirteen bond series that leaves Emory in $4.2B in municipal bond debt. David Schoen, the nationally renowned civil rights attorney who has previously represented President Trump, investigated Dr. Deas's retaliation case and stated unequivocally: "The treatment of my client by Emory is the worst treatment I have ever seen a group of doctors treat another doctor in my 35-year career."

Alabama families have the power to hold these institutions accountable. You can join this movement by becoming a Founding Member of Dr. Deas's campaign. The first 1,000 donors who contribute by February 8, 2026 receive a personalized thank-you video from Dr. Deas, an exclusive "Founding Member" car sticker, direct monthly campaign strategy updates, and invitations to quarterly strategy calls where you'll hear directly from Dr. Deas about the campaign's progress and the ongoing federal investigations.

Every $25 donation sends a message: Alabama families decide who represents them in Washington, not billionaires who purchase protection with $3.1 million in bribes. When 1,000 Alabama families contribute $25 each, that collective $25,000 has more democratic legitimacy than Raymond Harbert's $625,000 in contributions to Katie Britt's 2022 Senate campaign. This is what people-powered politics looks like when it actually works.

Every dollar goes directly to voter outreach, digital advertising, grassroots organizing, and debate preparation. Dr. Deas faces primary opponents Steve Marshall and Barry Moore, both of whom accept corporate PAC money and billionaire donations. They will have millions in special interest war chests. But they won't have what Dr. Deas has: the truth, the evidence, and the courage to expose it.

When Dr. Deas reported this fraud to the FBI on November 3, 2025, he asked Special Agent Kathryn Cordes a simple question: "We're being physically surveilled. We're at risk. Can you relay us to the U.S. Marshals office for witness protection evaluation?" Agent Cordes responded: "If you ever feel threatened, reach out to the local police department."

That moment crystallized everything. Federal law enforcement wasn't investigating, it was participating in the cover-up. Regulatory agencies weren't enforcing, they were enabling. The political system had been so completely captured by special interests that the institutions designed to enforce law had become mechanisms of suppression.

The Constitution provides a remedy when institutions fail: the electoral process. Dr. Deas is exercising his First Amendment right to petition the government by running for United States Senate. He's appealing directly to Alabama voters because the ballot box is the only accountability mechanism that hasn't been captured yet. This is not a traditional campaign. This is a constitutional petition demanding justice for Harrison Willson, justice for the dozen-plus patients who died in Emory's cardiac surgery and thoracic transplant program, and justice for every Alabama family that's been betrayed by senators who take bribes instead of serving the people who elected them.

Alabama deserves better. Harrison Willson deserved better. You deserve better.

Vote for Dr. Dale Shelton Deas Jr. on May 19, 2026. Join the fight to expose the largest municipal bond securities fraud in American history, and take back your government from the billionaires who purchased it.

CONTACT: DrDeasForSenate@proton.me | 251-635-2279

ELECTION DAY: May 19, 2026 - Republican Primary