[ad_1]
District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a statement Thursday that Dr Hasan Gokal was charged with theft by an official, a misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in prison and a fine of $ 4,000. .
Gokal is accused of taking a nine-dose vial on December 29, 2020. He worked at a vaccination site in Humble, north of Houston, Ogg said.
Authorities say the doctor “failed to follow county protocols in place to ensure the vaccine is not wasted but given to vulnerable populations and frontline workers on a waiting list.”
“He abused his position to place his friends and family in front of people who had gone through the legal process to be there,” Ogg said in the statement. “What he did was illegal, and he will be held responsible under the law.”
Gokal’s lawyer said his client was eager to right what he called a wrong.
The doctor is “a dedicated official who ensured that doses of the COVID-19 vaccine that would otherwise have expired were in the arms of people who qualified to receive it,” attorney Paul Doyle said in a statement. “Harris County would have preferred Dr Gokal to let the vaccines go to waste and attempt to denigrate this man’s reputation in the process of supporting this policy.”
Gokal told a colleague what he had done and that person reported it to supervisors, authorities said. He was then fired.
Harris County Public Health said it will not release a statement.
Doyle said he expected to have more to say on the matter on Friday.
CNN was unable to confirm Gokal’s first appearance in court.
[ad_2]
Source link