Sheriff: ‘This is one of the most disturbing sexual predator cases I have seen’

A Rochester Hills doctor has been arrested after authorities discovered thousands of nude photos and videos of children and adults taken while the victims were changing at Goldfish Swim School, in hospitals, in changing areas, and in various other locations over at least the past six years.

“This individual is potentially one of the worst I’ve ever seen, because there is no particular category — it’s not just children. It’s not just women. It’s not just men. It goes from a 2-year-old boy to a grown woman,” Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard said. “The victimization is so broad and the perversion so great that we’re just beginning to wrap our arms around it.”

Authorities were alerted Aug. 7 of potential criminal activity of Dr. Oumair Aejaz, 40 — a citizen of India, a physician, a married man and a father of two young children. 

“The allegations were that he was engaged in activity, including but not limited to placing hidden cameras in changing rooms, video recording young children, as young as 2 years of age, all the way up to grown adults in different settings,” Bouchard said.

“The defendant’s wife produced materials that were concerning,” Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald added. “The Oakland County Sheriff's Office immediately executed a search warrant and confiscated more devices and has sifted through really jarring, alarming images, and they’re still doing that.”

Authorities say Aejaz recorded sexual encounters he had with numerous women, with hospital patients who were either asleep or unconscious, and recorded relatives and strangers in the bathroom or while changing clothes.

Aejaz was arrested Aug. 8 at his Rochester Hills home and was arraigned Aug. 13 in 52-3 District Court in Rochester Hills. He is charged with one count of child sexually abusive activity, four counts of capturing an image of an unclothed person and five counts of using a computer to commit a crime. At press time, he was being held in the Oakland County Jail on a $2 million bond.

The current charges, McDonald said, stem from incidents at Goldfish Swim School in Rochester, where Aejaz is alleged to have filmed two women and two children, ages 2 and 4, in a changing area. Investigators believe the victims were filmed from a nearby changing stall. The child sexually abusive activity charge, according to authorities, involves an unidentified minor and is not related to the swim school incidents.

“He was not caught there. The victims were unaware. This was discovered on the hard drives that we were investigating,” Bouchard said. “The camera looks like it’s looking underneath into their changing room.” 

In a statement posted on its social media page Aug. 20, Goldfish Swim School of Rochester said its staff was “shocked, angered and saddened to recently learn of the criminal activity of former member Oumair Aejaz within our school, along with many other locations in the greater community. To think that anyone would violate the privacy and trust of others, particularly vulnerable children, is inconceivable. While Aejaz has not been in our facility for months, we will do everything in our power to continue to cooperate with law enforcement as they, along with other public safety partners, hold him fully accountable for his actions. The safety of our students, families and team members are our top priority — this is not negotiable. We will continue to work with those affected to provide them the support needed during this time. If you, or anyone you know, has any information about Mr. Aejaz and any peculiar behavior, please reach out to the Oakland County Sheriff's Department at ocsosiu@oakgov.com. As this is an ongoing criminal investigation, we cannot elaborate further, in order to preserve the integrity of the investigation.”

Goldfish staff said families who are involved will be notified by law enforcement upon identification, adding that those identified have already been notified.

“We have unfortunately seen a lot of inaccurate reporting about the horrible situation involving the arrest of Oumair Aejaz, a former member who has been charged with horrendous crimes spanning multiple facilities, cities, possibly states and countries. We want to clarify and reiterate that within the Goldfish facility, there was never a camera hidden affixed to any structures, restrooms or changing areas, or left behind. What we understand from law enforcement is this was not a case where cameras were affixed to or hidden in the Goldfish facility, but rather recordings were made by hidden recording equipment on the suspect’s person, and/or his belongings that he brought in and out of the facility when he came into our school for lessons. Unfortunately, no one would have known unless the suspect was physically searched,” the company stated. “Law enforcement has done a thorough sweep of our school to assure that there are no cameras hidden or affixed, and we continue to prioritize the safety and privacy of our members, team and guests with continuous facility checks, as we always have. We remain incredibly angered and saddened, not just for the Goldfish community but for everyone who this predator victimized over many years in a multitude of jurisdictions.”

Bouchard said Aejaz had obviously been examining and researching cameras to a variety of surreptitious activity.

“It looks like he is using a variety of camera options, including something that may be accessible, maybe even controlled by a device, and some things may have been just his cellphone. That’s still a work in progress. There’s sometimes opportunistic moments when he does it, and other times when it looks like he has intentionally planned the moment.”

Investigators have confiscated six computers, four cellphones and 15 external storage devices, and they believe there are many other victims, who they are seeking to identify. 

“Just one of the hard drives has 13,000 videos, so each one of them will have to be gone through to see if there is criminality or potential criminality in those videos, and the prosecution will determine if there is criminal activity, the charges in those. This could take as long as six months just to get through what we already have, so our computer crimes unit is deeply engaged in this and has put tons of hours into this already,” Bouchard explained. “The other potential is there also might be cloud storage, so we’re trying to run that down. Due to the lengthy time that he’s been involved in this activity and the large amounts of storage that we have in our possession, we believe there is obviously a lot more to be uncovered.”

Aejaz, a citizen of India, has been working in the United States on a visa. He came to the United States around 2011, completed his residency at Detroit Sinai Grace Hospital and then moved to Dawson, Alabama. Aejaz returned to Oakland County to continue his practice in internal medicine in 2018 and had privileges at Ascension Genesys Hospital in Grand Blanc Township and Henry Ford Macomb in Clinton Township but was not on staff. 

“He was, apparently, an individual, a contracted physician, that went to different locations for a company, rather than having his own specific practice, so we still don’t know the scope of how many facilities or venues he may have visited in that regard. It is a very active investigation,” Bouchard said.

Bouchard said he expects the geographic scope of the investigation to increase beyond Genesee and Macomb counties, where the hospitals are located, and may include other states or countries, depending on where Aejaz worked. 

“When you think about the incredible perversion and destructive activity of Nassar, he had a much smaller group of victims in terms of potential,” Bouchard said of Larry Nassar, a Michigan State University and Olympic physician, and a serial child rapist. “There’s no limit to this individual in terms of his perversion,” Bouchard said of Aejaz. “So we’re going to need the public’s help and victims’ help, because a lot of these we may not even be able to identify because we have so many victims, so many videos of people. We have no idea who they are and sometimes, what the venue is,” said Bouchard.

Aejaz’s attorney, Mariell Lehman, could not be reached for comment at press time.

Anyone who believes they were a victim of Aejaz can contact detectives at OCSOSIU@oakgov.com.