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But buried in the indictment is a detail that should alarm anyone who cares about the medical profession: two of the eight defendants were aspiring or practicing physicians.
"The Dirtiest F---ing Doctor Ever"
Ahmet Kerem Korkaya, 28, was a medical student at the time of the alleged offenses. According to the indictment, he sent a text message to co-conspirators stating that a named target's "entire family is now on my hit list." In a separate message, he allegedly described the target as a "piece of shit" and wrote that he would be "the dirtiest f---ing doctor ever"—one who would slowly "poison" that person.
This is an alleged, specific, named threat, delivered in writing, by a man who was at that moment being trained to prescribe medications to patients who cannot independently verify what they are being given. The doctor-patient relationship is built on an asymmetry of power and an assumption of good faith. Patients, including patients who hold political views their doctor despises, surrender themselves to that trust every time they accept a prescription, receive an IV, or go under anesthesia.
Korkaya has pleaded not guilty. These are allegations. But the allegation itself—that a medical student responded to political frustration by invoking his future professional access as an agent for harm—is precisely the kind of information medical licensing boards exist to evaluate.
The Doula Accepted to Medical School
Paige Elizabeth Feyock, 26, was working as a doula when she was indicted. She had recently been accepted to a medical school in Illinois. She faces the indictment's most serious charge: conspiracy to tamper with a witness, a federal felony carrying up to twenty years in prison.
The witness-intimidation allegation is that Feyock, and co-defendant Zainab Hakim, met with an unnamed peer specifically to prevent the alleged target in the aforementioned indictment from speaking to law enforcement. If proven, this is not a protest gone too far. It is the deliberate obstruction of a federal investigation, undertaken by someone who will one day hold the license, the DEA number, and the prescribing authority of a physician.
Judge Anthony Patti released Feyock on bond—correctly noting her lack of prior criminal record and the absence of physical injury to any victim—but not before telling her to "reflect on what kind of doctor she wanted to become."
Who Holds Doctors Accountable?
Every state medical licensing board in the United States has the authority—and in most states, the statutory obligation—to investigate applicants and licensees who have been charged with, or convicted of, crimes that bear on character or fitness to practice. The Illinois medical school that accepted Feyock, and whatever state she intends to practice in, will have to confront this directly.
The specific nature of the Korkaya allegation raises the stakes further. Threatening to poison a named individual—while enrolled in a program that will train her to administer medications—goes directly to the question of whether she can be trusted with that medical training and access.
The Chemical Dimension
It is also worth noting that the alleged instrument of attack on officials' homes was butyric acid, which was thrown in glass jars through windows into occupied residences. Butyric acid, also known as a stink bomb, is corrosive, pungent, and persistent. At sufficient concentration, it causes skin and eye irritation and serious respiratory distress.
The selection of a caustic chemical compound as a weapon suggests a level of deliberateness about harm that goes beyond protest vandalism. Combined with the alleged "poison" text, it points to a pattern that any licensing body would be obligated to examine.
The Broader Question
None of this is to say the political context is irrelevant, or that federal conspiracy charges should automatically end a medical career. The defense attorneys are right that no one was physically injured, and Judge Patti was right to flag the First Amendment dimensions of an indictment that relies heavily on social media posts.
But the specific allegations against the medical defendants are not just social media posts. They are alleged private communications threatening to use professional access to harm named individuals. They are alleged face-to-face meetings to silence witnesses. They involve the deliberate selection of a caustic chemical compound.
The oath a physician takes is not to patients who share their politics. It is to patients. All of them. The licensing system exists precisely to screen for the disposition to honor that commitment regardless of what a patient believes.
It should be remembered that the Holocaust was a physician-led genocide. The first Nazi mass-murder programme was run entirely by doctors. The Nuremberg Code, which became the foundation of the Declaration of Helsinki (1964), were written precisely because doctors had proven they could not self-regulate. Medical Boards are now empowered, and arguably required, to ask the question: Would Korkaya and Feyock adhere to those rules, or would they side with the Nazis?
The indictment in U.S. v. Hakim et al. was filed in the Eastern District of Michigan. All eight defendants have entered not guilty pleas. Trial dates have not yet been set.
Below is a photo of the alleged threats spray-painted on the Jewish Federation Building on the one-year anniversary of the October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attacks in Israel.
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