A view of Palmetto General Hospital on Tuesday, May 7, 2024. Michael Sarian founded the company that now owns Palmetto General and four other South Florida hospitals.
Al Diaz
adiaz@miamiherald.com
Michael “Mike” Sarian, the founder and owner of a health network with five hospitals across South Florida, is speaking out for the first time about his recent ousting as CEO, describing it as a takeover scheme orchestrated by one of his most trusted advisers and a shareholder.
Sarian, in a phone interview with the Miami Herald on Wednesday, said he and his family were victims of death threats and other intimidation tactics leading up to the recent “coup” to wrestle away operational control of hospitals in Florida and California. He blames Faisal Gill, an attorney who serves as a board member and new CEO of the Florida hospitals, and Dr. Aramais Paronyan, a shareholder who previously settled a case involving allegations of fraudulent billing to Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid system, that was initiated in the ‘90s.
Sarian said it was on Feb. 21, the day of his mom’s funeral, when Gill called to say that Sarian was no longer CEO for the health systems that operate Palmetto General Hospital in Hialeah, Coral Gables Hospital, Hialeah Hospital, North Shore Medical Center in North Miami-Dade and Florida Medical Center in Lauderdale Lakes.
The ousting was executed by Medical Properties Trust, a real estate investment firm that owns the land the hospitals sit on, which used its voting powers to remove Sarian and appoint Gill as acting CEO and chair of Healthcare Systems of America’s Florida hospitals, along with one in Louisiana and two in Texas. Sarian told the Herald he’s always had a strong working relationship with Medical Properties Trust and believes Gill persuaded someone inside the company to oust him, calling it a “bad business decision.”
“I keep buying these bankrupt hospitals and trying to save these jobs and the services,” said Sarian, describing his motivation to purchase struggling hospitals as a way “to help my family, to help my community, to help, if I can, people in need, which I’ve done all my life.”
The Herald last week reported the news that Sarian was no longer CEO of the Florida hospitals in a story about a Miami-Dade lawsuit filed by Healthcare Systems of America that accuses Sarian of trying to take control of the system’s bank accounts and transferring money “in an unexplained manner.” On Wednesday, Sarian denied those allegations.
Likewise, attorneys representing Gill and Paronyan in a lawsuit filed by Sarian in Los Angeles have denied Sarian’s allegations of a “coup,” saying in court documents that his removal was necessary due to financial misconduct.
Medical Properties Trust on March 10 said it’s not involved in the Healthcare Systems of America lawsuit and that it doesn’t expect the legal drama to impact its ability to get rent from the health system.
Sarian says he is the founder and sole owner and shareholder of Healthcare Systems of America, or HSA, which runs the five South Florida hospitals. The health system bought the hospitals from troubled Steward Healthcare System in 2024 as part of a deal Steward made to thin debt.
Sarian says he is also the founder and majority owner of American Healthcare Systems, which operates hospitals in North Carolina, Illinois and Texas, as well as NOR Healthcare Systems, which operates hospitals in California. He has over 30 years of experience in the healthcare industry, and his health network spans a total of 19 hospitals in the country.
The power struggle playing out in Los Angeles and Miami-Dade County courts is now in mediation, at least in California. Sarian was put under a temporary restraining order by a Miami-Dade Circuit judge, prohibiting him from accessing bank accounts associated with the health system’s Florida hospitals.
Sarian’s ask for a similar temporary restraining order against Gill and Paronyan to stop them from taking over the health network and to protect him and his family from harassment and retaliation was denied by a California judge.
Founder Michael Sarian denies allegations 
A screenshot of Healthcare Systems of America’s website on Thursday, March 12, 2026, lists Michael “Mike” Sarian as chair and CEO. His photo and biography still remained on the website on Thursday, March 19, 2026. Screenshot of HSA’s website
The Miami-Dade lawsuit by Healthcare Systems of America briefly discusses another money-related allegation Sarian is facing in California. Attorneys representing Gill and Paronyan say Sarian was removed as CEO from HSA and NOR after the board learned he was shuffling money around between the corporate accounts of the health systems “totaling tens of millions of dollars and coinciding with mounting payroll tax delinquencies” that led to, among other things, unpaid state and federal payroll taxes, with hospitals at times unable to pay for supplies and physician paychecks.
“Large transfers had been directed from hospital operating accounts into Healthcare Systems of America, an entity solely owned by Mr. Sarian,” reads a document filed by Gill and Paronyan’s attorneys disputing Sarian’s claims. “Those transfers occurred during periods of significant liquidity strain. Payroll tax obligations across multiple entities were not being remitted. Cash balances were inconsistent with reported operational stability.”
Sarian told the Herald all financial misconduct allegations against him are unfounded. He said the transfers of money across the health systems were internal “loans” to help each system cover payroll expenses as needed and that Gill, who served as the health network’s attorney, was “supposed to do the paperwork” for it. His suit, for example, describes an $11 million intercompany loan between NOR and HSA as being “initiated, executed, and administered by Gill himself (or his family and associates), who controlled NOR’s bank accounts” and that “HSA has already partially repaid the loan.”
“I’m not the lawyer. He’s the legal counsel,” a frustrated Sarian told the Herald. “I’m just the operator. … I know how to operate hospitals.”
Sarian also said that he never took a salary from HSA and often used his own money to keep hospital operations afloat, including putting expenses on his personal American Express credit card.
Attorneys for Gill argued in court documents that Gill’s job was primarily as a legal adviser until he moved into the role of chief operating officer last year and became involved in “direct operational review of financial practices, liquidity management, inter-entity transfers, and regulatory exposure.” Gill is now serving as CEO of HSA’s Florida hospitals and chief operating officer of NOR and American Healthcare Systems.
What Sarian says happened
In Sarian’s retelling of events, which are detailed in the lawsuit, the health system founder said that he found himself the subject of threats, both direct and indirect, by Paronyan and that he was misled by Gill, whom Sarian says sought to remove him as CEO for personal gain and used hired armed security guards not to protect Sarian but to spy on him.
“I’m not some mafia leader that strategizes this thing,” Sarian said, describing himself as a family man and philanthropist who is a born-again Christian. “I mean, these people are like the mob. … I’m really concerned about my well-being and my safety because these threats can be real, real, real.”
Some of the allegations listed in the lawsuit and told to the Herald by Sarian include:
Paronyan, an investor, was removed from an honorary paid position last year by Sarian. Paronyan, whom Sarian’s lawsuit describes as having substantial debt, at some point “demanded” his interest be bought out for a hefty sum. When Sarian refused, Paronyan blocked him from leaving his office and told Sarian, “You’re not going to leave this office alive,” according to the lawsuit. Paronyan later allegedly told Sarian’s wife, who is HSA’s vice president of business development, that Paronyan could “sell his case to Chechens” to kill Sarian and that afterward, he would “take care of” her and the couple’s newborn baby. Gill later told Sarian that Paronyan knew the name and hotel of where Sarian’s teenage daughter was staying abroad. “Under this duress of repeated death threats, Sarian agreed to a multi-million dollar distribution to Paronyan. The payment was not voluntary — it was extracted by direct threats against Sarian, his daughter, and his family,” the complaint alleges. Sarian’s suit says police in California are investigating the incidents. The Herald has requested the reports.Sarian told the Herald he recently discovered that Gill altered the corporate documents of NOR Healthcare, the California hospitals operator, to include a clause that would transfer 10% of the company to Gill upon Sarian’s death. Sarian said Gill also brought in family members and other associates into “key roles” across the health system, including his wife and stepson, who is listed as a signatory on the HSA bank accounts.Upon Gill’s recommendation, Sarian hired armed security guards to protect him and his family. But Gill was the one actually calling the shots, using the security force to spy on Sarian, and later used the guards to escort him out of the building, according to Sarian.
Geragos & Geragos, the law firm representing Gill and Paronyan in the California lawsuit, declined to comment on the pending litigation and directed the Herald to the existing court documents.
The two sides are now in mediation in the California case. For Sarian, who says he now regrets partnering with Paronyan and hiring Gill, two people he thought were friends, all he wants is “peace.”
“What I want, one thing, safety and ease for me and my family. If I can resolve it, move on … 100%, I want to have peace,” he said.
This story was originally published March 19, 2026 at 4:14 PM.
Miami Herald
Michelle Marchante covers the pulse of healthcare in South Florida and also the City of Coral Gables. Before that, she covered the COVID-19 pandemic, hurricanes, crime, education, entertainment and other topics in South Florida for the Herald as a breaking news reporter. She recently won first place in the health reporting category in the 2025 Sunshine State Awards for her coverage of Steward Health’s bankruptcy. An investigative series about the abrupt closure of a Miami heart transplant program led Michelle and her colleagues to be recognized as finalists in two 2024 Florida Sunshine State Award categories. She also won second place in the 73rd annual Green Eyeshade Awards for her consumer-focused healthcare stories and was part of the team of reporters who won a 2022 Pulitzer Prize for the Miami Herald’s breaking news coverage of the Surfside building collapse. Michelle graduated with honors from Florida International University and was a 2025 National Press Foundation Covering Workplace Mental Health fellow and a 2020-2021 Poynter-Koch Media & Journalism fellow.
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