Georgia doctor settles $30M defamation case against NBC

A representative of NBC did not immediately respond Monday to questions about the case.

Stacey Evans, an attorney for Amin, said he’s pleased to be able to move on from the case, though “the mental scars will never fully heal.” She said the settlement terms are confidential.

“It is unfortunate that he had to sue to get confirmation of what was known all along — that he did not perform mass hysterectomies on women detained at Irwin County Detention Center,” Evans said Monday. “Dr. Amin is a devoted physician who has dedicated his entire career to serving underserved communities. The recklessness of NBCUniversal to try to paint Dr. Amin as an evil doctor was disgusting and we are glad they finally settled the case.”

The judge overseeing the case ruled in June 2024 that some of the NBC statements about Amin were “verifiably false” and that a jury should decide whether it made those statements with malice and a “high degree of awareness that the statements were false.”

Amin claimed he was defamed during MSNBC broadcasts in September 2020 that reported a whistleblower complaint alleging deplorable conditions and medical malpractice at the Irwin County Detention Center in Ocilla. At the time and until October 2021, the center was used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The women were in ICE custody.

The evidence shows that Amin performed two hysterectomies on detainees of the Irwin County facility between 2017 and 2019, both of which were deemed medically necessary by ICE.

U.S. District Judge Lisa Wood set the case for trial starting April 22, 2025. She said NBC found no evidence of more than two hysterectomies, but published statements that Amin performed “mass hysterectomies” and had a bad reputation among detainees.

“A jury could conclude that (Amin) performed unnecessary and unauthorized gynecological procedures, including the two hysterectomies,” Wood said in an 83-page order. “A jury could also conclude that these accusations were materially false.”

In court filings, NBC stood by its reporting of allegations against Amin, which were spearheaded by a Tifton resident who worked as a nurse at the Irwin County Detention Center. Tifton is in Tift County, which abuts Irwin County to the southwest.

“MSNBC did not just re-state the allegations of the whistleblower complaint, as many news organizations did,” the company said in a December 2023 filing. “Instead, it conducted and relied on additional reporting — interviewing the whistleblower, speaking with detainees’ lawyers who expressed serious concerns with Dr. Amin’s medical care, consulting a medical expert, and reviewing court records with similar allegations against Dr. Amin. At every turn, the whistleblower complaint’s allegations were corroborated.”

The allegations about Amin sparked multiple investigations by government agencies including ICE, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the Georgia Composite Medical Board and the U.S. Department of Justice. The state board found the allegations were unsubstantiated, Amin said in court filings. Homeland Security issued recommendations to ICE concerning the Irwin County Detention Center.

As part of a DOJ probe, Amin and others settled civil claims. A U.S. Senate committee concluded in November 2022 that female detainees at the Ocilla facility were subjected to excessive, invasive and often unnecessary gynecological procedures, for which there were repeated failures to secure informed consent. The committee, which interviewed 70 witnesses and reviewed over 541,000 pages of records, found that Amin was a “clear outlier” in both the number and types of procedures he performed compared to other obstetrician-gynecologists who treated ICE detainees.

In her June 2024 order, Wood noted that Amin declined to testify before the Senate committee, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

The Irwin County Detention Center housed about 4% of female ICE detainees nationwide from 2017 to 2020, when Amin accounted for about 6.5% of all OB-GYN visits among all ICE detainees, court records show. He performed nearly a third of certain OB-GYN procedures on ICE detainees across the country between 2017 and 2020 and more than 90% of some key procedures.

Amin’s complaint against NBC stated that he was the sole OB-GYN in Irwin County until 2020, when he ceased treating patients at the Irwin County Detention Center. Amin, who has been licensed to practice medicine in Georgia for almost 40 years, lives in Douglas, about 30 miles from Ocilla.

In a separate case pending before Wood, Amin claims he was defamed in a 2023 true crime podcast that also stemmed from the whistleblower allegations against him. He seeks at least $15 million in that case, filed in March 2024.

A different federal judge in Georgia dismissed civil medical malpractice claims against Amin and others tied to the Irwin County Detention Center in March 2024. In two similar cases, 17 women alleged they were subjected to abuse, including unnecessary gynecological procedures performed without their consent by or at the direction of Amin while they were detained at the center. The federal government settled the remaining claims in those cases.