The University of Michigan Withheld Key Files, Then Used Them Against Drs. Bradley Foerster and Myria Petrou: New FOIA Tests Whether a Separate Withheld FBI Record Concerns Racism, Antisemitism, or Hate Crimes
The University of Michigan has acknowledged possessing an FBI-generated document concerning Dr. Bradley Foerster and/or Dr. Myria Petrou. The University has withheld the document in full.
Dr. Foerster and Dr. Petrou are testing possible subjects of the document through focused FOIA requests. The October 29, 2026 request asks whether the document concerns alleged racism, antisemitism, racial or religious bias, or hate crimes involving Dr. Foerster or Dr. Petrou.
The request follows years of allegations that entered police, University, and federal files—often without Dr. Foerster or Dr. Petrou receiving the underlying records or even knowing that the records existed.
The chronology begins before the accusations. In 2015, Dr. Foerster and Dr. Petrou served as witnesses in a sexual-harassment case. In 2017, Dr. Foerster and Dr. Petrou reported concerns about the administration of NIH grant R01NS082304, after which the University of Michigan Office of the Vice President and General Counsel communicated with FBI Special Agent Sue Lucas about the grant . Criminal and professional allegations concerning Dr. Foerster and Dr. Petrou followed.
Maria Petrou, Dr. Petrou’s mother, instructed Dr. Petrou—holder of Maria Petrou’s durable power of attorney—to liquidate Maria Petrou’s Merrill Lynch accounts and reimburse Dr. Petrou and Dr. Foerster for expenses paid on behalf of Dr. Petrou’s parents.
Maria Petrou later accused Dr. Petrou and Dr. Foerster of embezzlement . The resulting police investigation produced search warrants that froze bank accounts belonging to Dr. Petrou and Dr. Foerster for more than a year. While the funds remained frozen, the Bank of Ann Arbor executed sheriff’s sales of properties belonging to Dr. Petrou and Dr. Foerster. One year later, the county prosecutor declined criminal charges and characterized the matter as “clearly civil.”
After Dr. Paul Cronin loaned money to Dr. Foerster and Dr. Petrou, “Nick”—an unidentified person claiming to be a University of Michigan faculty member and a colleague of Dr. Cronin—made telephone calls from a University hospital accusing Dr. Foerster and Dr. Petrou of extorting Dr. Cronin over an alleged sex scandal .
Police relied on allegations attributed to “Nick” to continue the investigation after Maria Petrou withdrew the embezzlement complaint. After Dr. Cronin denied under oath any knowledge of “Nick,” Maria Petrou renewed the complaint.
Dr. Eva Feldman recommended research coordinator Sara Abraham to Dr. Petrou and Dr. Foerster. After University of Michigan Human Resources recommended termination, Dr. Petrou terminated Abraham’s employment for cause.
Abraham subsequently accused Dr. Petrou of disclosing Abraham’s pregnancy in violation of HIPAA, accused Dr. Foerster of research-data fraud, and accused Dr. Petrou and Dr. Foerster of making antisemitic comments concerning Dr. Feldman. Abraham presented the allegations in a complaint to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office for Civil Rights .
HHS-OCR dismissed the complaint. HHS-OCR also determined that Abraham had never been Dr. Petrou’s patient. No patient-physician relationship existed to support the HIPAA allegation.
After Dr. Foerster and Dr. Petrou sent Dr. Feldman a $10,000 check to repay money previously provided by Dr. Feldman, Dr. Feldman declined repayment. Through the University’s Office of the Vice President and General Counsel, Dr. Feldman characterized the repayment communications as harassment and demanded that all contact cease .
Tarick Seifeddine, Duaa Altaee’s husband at the time, agreed to store a piano, china, paintings, and other belongings owned by Dr. Petrou and Dr. Foerster after Seifeddine purchased 1745 Brian Court.
When Dr. Petrou and Dr. Foerster sought the return of the property, Seifeddine reported the communications to the Ann Arbor Police Department as harassment . AAPD investigated for approximately seven months without interviewing Dr. Petrou or Dr. Foerster. After Dr. Petrou filed a civil action against Seifeddine and the City of Ann Arbor, AAPD closed the investigation without charges.
Other accusations alleged that Dr. Foerster and Dr. Petrou stole two orange stray cats , sent an allegedly bugged statue to former Radiology Chair Dr. Reed Dunnick as a retirement gift, and sent a letter to Vice Dean Carol Bradford that police characterized as suspicious . Each allegation reached law enforcement. The University of Michigan Office of the Vice President and General Counsel participated in many of the underlying matters.
The allegations differed, but the records show a recurring sequence: an agreed financial transaction, employment relationship, loan, repayment, or property-storage arrangement later became the basis for allegations of criminal or professional misconduct.
The allegations entered police, University, or federal files that Dr. Foerster and Dr. Petrou could not fully examine. In some instances, Dr. Foerster and Dr. Petrou did not even know that the files existed.
The problem was not simply the number or range of the allegations. The University controlled many of the records used to support them. The University withheld key documents while investigations and proceedings unfolded, then relied on those documents to turn disputed allegations into institutional conclusions and pursue employment action against Dr. Foerster and Dr. Petrou.
Hall Render, the outside law firm retained by the University of Michigan to investigate the NIH grant and EPIC medical billing, prepared two reports in 2017. Dr. Foerster requested the reports from then–Vice President and General Counsel Timothy Lynch in December 2017 and from Deputy General Counsel Kara Morgenstern in February 2018. Neither Lynch nor Morgenstern provided them.
By the November 2018 Bylaw 5.09 dismissal proceedings, both reports were more than one year old. The University did not release the reports until shortly before the proceedings. Every page remained marked “DRAFT,” and neither report carried a signature. The University then used both reports against Dr. Foerster during the dismissal proceedings.
The University also withheld Duaa Altaee’s OIE/Title IX report concerning the sexual-harassment case from Altaee and Dr. Foerster. Hall Render used statements and findings from the withheld report to attack Dr. Foerster’s credibility in its NIH-grant report, even though Hall Render acknowledged that the sexual-harassment and retaliation matters fell outside the grant investigation.
Hall Render attorney David French testified about Hall Render’s unsigned “DRAFT” NIH-grant and EPIC medical-billing reports during Dr. Foerster’s November 12, 2018 Bylaw 5.09 hearing. Dr. Foerster had to cross-examine French without access to Altaee’s underlying OIE/Title IX report. The University provided Altaee’s report to Dr. Foerster on November 14, two days after French’s testimony.
The University also withheld an OIE/Title IX memorandum concerning Dr. Petrou that OIE issued one day after Dr. Petrou resigned. The memorandum addressed the University of Michigan Office of the Vice President and General Counsel’s investigation into the identity of “Nick” —an unidentified person claiming to be University faculty and a colleague of Dr. Cronin—and allegations that Dr. Foerster and Dr. Petrou had extorted Dr. Cronin over an alleged sex scandal.
Hall Render expanded the NIH-grant investigation beyond the reported grant concerns by importing statements and findings from the separate OIE/Title IX proceeding and the EPIC medical-billing investigation. Hall Render cited unrelated reports made by Dr. Petrou as evidence of a purported “pattern of behavior,” questioned whether Dr. Foerster and Dr. Petrou had acted in bad faith or with reckless disregard for the truth, and characterized statements by Drs. Foerster, Petrou, Cronin, and Aine Kelly as “flat misrepresentations.”
Hall Render converted separate OIE/Title IX, retaliation, medical-billing, and NIH-grant matters into a cumulative credibility case against Dr. Foerster and Dr. Petrou. The University then used the unsigned draft reports in proceedings that ultimately forced Dr. Foerster’s resignation from a tenured faculty appointment.
The information imbalance extended into the federal record.
Only recently, through Dr. Foerster’s FOIA litigation, did Dr. Foerster and Dr. Petrou learn that federal officials had considered criminal prosecution and pursued restitution and debarment involving Dr. Foerster, Dr. Petrou, and a third redacted individual following discussions with the University’s legal office concerning Dr. Foerster’s NIH grant R01NS082304.
A February 21, 2019 FBI record titled “Restitution and Debarment both in process” documents discussions involving the FBI, HHS-OIG, and the University of Michigan Office of the Vice President and General Counsel.
The FBI record states that the University planned to reduce NIH grant R01NS082304 by $294,284.02, that debarment involving Dr. Foerster, Dr. Petrou, and a third redacted individual was “in process,” and that the assigned federal prosecutor had advised that no criminal charges would be brought against any of the three individuals.
Dr. Petrou was an unfunded co-investigator on NIH grant R01NS082304.
Dr. Foerster and Dr. Petrou received no notice of the criminal referral, restitution issue, debarment process, or FBI record at the time.
The federal record contains two unresolved discrepancies.
First, the February 21, 2019 FBI record states that debarment involving Dr. Foerster, Dr. Petrou, and a third redacted individual was “in process” . Later FOIA requests seeking the underlying debarment records produced a different result: HHS-OIG reported that agency searches located no responsive documents concerning either physician.
Second, both the FBI and HHS-OIG document a decision by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Michigan to decline criminal prosecution. Yet the Executive Office for United States Attorneys conducted two searches of the Eastern District of Michigan—including a search using the FBI case number—and reported no responsive records concerning any referral, consultation, consideration, or declination of prosecution involving Dr. Foerster or Dr. Petrou .
The FBI records describe a criminal-prosecution decision and an active debarment process. HHS-OIG cannot locate the debarment records. The U.S. Attorney’s Office cannot locate the prosecution records. The released documents do not reconcile the conflicting accounts.
The University has acknowledged possessing another FBI-generated document concerning Dr. Foerster and/or Dr. Petrou .
The University has withheld the document in full.
Without the document, Dr. Foerster and Dr. Petrou cannot determine whether the FBI record repeats a known allegation, presents a new allegation, concerns the NIH-grant investigation, or addresses another subject entirely.
The University knows the contents. Dr. Foerster and Dr. Petrou do not know the contents.
Dr. Foerster and Dr. Petrou are testing possible subjects of the withheld FBI record one at a time.
The October 27 request asks whether the University possesses FBI-generated records concerning alleged harassment, cyberbullying, stalking, threatening communications, or repeated unwanted communications involving Dr. Foerster or Dr. Petrou.
The October 28 request asks whether the records concern alleged false statements, false criminal allegations, false reports to law enforcement, obstruction, or perjury by Dr. Foerster or Dr. Petrou.
The October 29 request asks whether the University possesses FBI-generated records concerning alleged racism, antisemitism, racial or religious bias, discriminatory animus, or hate crimes involving Dr. Foerster or Dr. Petrou.
The request does not assume that the FBI investigated or substantiated any such allegation. It asks whether the FBI-generated records held by the University concern that subject.
Selected Reporting
- Bradley Foerster Submits 140-Exhibit, 1,121-Page Documentary Chronology to FBI for Supervisory Review of the Investigation Involving Dr. Bradley Foerster, Dr. Myria Petrou, and Duaa Altaee
- From One FBI File to a Legislative Proposal: Peter and Maria Foerster Ask Senator Van Hollen's Office and Congressman Jamie Raskin to Consider a Uniform Administrative Framework for Federal Investigations
- Eva Feldman Documentary Chronology: 139 Exhibits on NIH R01NS082304, University Proceedings, and Federal Investigation — No Response Received
- Bradley Foerster and Myria Petrou Send Ann Arbor Officials Documentary Chronology on AAPD and Related Federal Investigations — No Response Received
- Timothy Lynch Documentary Chronology: 63 Exhibits on University of Michigan Office of General Counsel, University Investigations, and Law Enforcement — No Response Received
- Bradley Foerster and Myria Petrou Documentary Chronology: 8 Exhibits Document More Than Two Years of Efforts to Trace Bank of Ann Arbor's $1.4 Million Sheriff's Sale Credit Bid — No Response Received
Brad Foerster, MD PhD
Brad Foerster is a FOIA advocate documenting requests, transparency disputes, and accountability investigations involving public agencies, universities, police oversight, and Russia-Gate related inquiries. His work compiles original documents, timelines, and analysis of public records and institutional responses. Brad is also a board-certified radiologist, author of Town & Gown, and has published over 40 peer-reviewed articles. Brad lives in Potomac, Maryland with his family and is a member of the Montgomery County Medical Society and the Takoma Park U.S. & World History Book Club.