Photo: Cumbria Police
For two decades, Zholia Alemi had been running a successful psychiatric practice in the United Kingdom, earning over $1 million. However, prosecutors are accusing the 60-year-old of forging her qualifications and have charged her with 13 counts related to her alleged fraud.
Alemi claimed that she earned her medical degree from the University of Auckland in 1992, but prosecutors said that she actually failed her final tests and never finished before she moved to the United Kingdom, where she opened up her practice.
"In a nutshell, the prosecution case against this defendant is that, for a period of approximately 20 years, she held herself out and practiced as a doctor, a doctor of medicine, when, in truth, she had never passed or achieved the relevant university qualification and was not a properly qualified doctor at all," prosecutor Christopher Stables said.
Despite never graduating, Alemi submitted the forged documents to the General Medical Council. Despite the fact that the documents were littered with spelling and grammatical errors, officials granted her a license to practice medicine in the country.
In 2018, Alemi's alleged forgery came to light, and the council revoked her medical license.
She is currently on trial, which is expected to last several weeks.