JOHN BYNON JR, a nationally renowned Texas surgeon, is facing federal charges after prosecutors alleged he blocked patients from receiving organ transplants by manipulating medical criteria and transplant waitlists, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
John Bynon Jr., 66, was charged last week with five counts of making false statements in health care matters. In a DOJ press release announcing the indictment, federal prosecutors alleged that Bynon left patients at Memorial Hermann Health System’s Texas Medical Center in Houston “unknowingly cut off from lifesaving care” as part of an organ transplant manipulation scheme that was uncovered in 2024.
“The charges allege that even though patients should have been able to receive donations through UNOS, Bynon made false statements in their medical records which rendered them functionally ineligible for a donation,” the DOJ release stated. “Patients, their families, and other members of their medical care team were unaware of the false information, according to court documents. Many patients allegedly remained ineligible for months without knowing they could not receive donor organ offers during that time.”
The United Network for Organ Sharing (UNOS) is the federal contractor responsible for overseeing the nation’s organ transplant system, according to The New York Times.
One patient, Daniel Rodriguez Alvarez, was reportedly placed “on and off” the transplant waiting list repeatedly for eight months before he died at Memorial Hermann in April 2024. “It felt at some point they were just toying with them,” his son, Daniel Rodriguez-Corrales, told local ABC affiliate KTRK.
Another patient, Richard Mostacci, remained on the transplant list at Memorial Hermann for approximately a year before he died in February 2024. Following the announcement of an investigation into Bynon that same year, Mostacci’s family and Alvarez’s relatives requested a restraining order against the surgeon.
“We saw him slipping away, slipping away, and there was nothing we could do,” Mostacci’s mother, Susie Garcia, told KTRK. “We trusted the doctors.”
According to a 2024 New York Times report, Memorial Hermann allegedly listed some patients as eligible to receive organs only from donors with impossible age and weight requirements. In one example, a patient was reportedly listed as only able to accept a liver from a 300-pound toddler. Experts said that while such patients technically appeared on the transplant list, they were effectively inactive and unlikely to ever receive an organ.
“They’re functionally inactive, and so they’re not going to get that transplant,” Dr. Sanjay Kulkarni, vice chair of the ethics committee of the national organ transplant system, told the newspaper.
Before the alleged misconduct was discovered, Bynon served as director of abdominal organ transplantation and surgical director for liver transplantation at Memorial Hermann.
According to the DOJ, patients under Bynon’s care were activated on the UNOS liver transplant waiting list while awaiting organ donations. Prosecutors allege that due to Bynon’s unilateral decisions and false statements—unknown to other medical providers—patients continued receiving Medicare-covered health care services as though they were eligible for organ offers.
The indictment further alleges that some patients experienced severe health outcomes as a result. Two patients reportedly sought care at other facilities after the alleged misconduct was discovered and ultimately received organ transplants elsewhere.
The investigation into Bynon involved the FBI and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. If convicted, he faces up to five years in federal prison.
“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,” said Jason Hudson, acting special agent in charge of the FBI Houston Field Office. “Dr. Bynon is accused of manipulating the criteria of patients on organ transplant waiting lists, thereby allegedly manipulating the patients’ chance of survival.”
