Latest Heart Pump Recipient a Fraud Suspect

The world’s fourth recipient of a permanent artificial heart was identified today as a Swedish businessman under indictment for tax evasion. Doctors said he is making a remarkable recovery and may be discharged from the hospital in four weeks.

“The patient is doing remarkably well,” said Bjarne Semb, the Norwegian heart surgeon who led the operation Sunday at Sweden’s Karolinska Hospital. “We had actually expected more problems.”

Authorities today confirmed that the first person outside the United States to receive a permanent artificial heart pump was real estate entrepreneur Leif Stenberg, 52--known in the Swedish press as “Mr. X” through a series of fraud investigations dating back to the 1960s.

Stenberg’s trial has been postponed twice in the last few years because of his poor health, aggravated by two major and several minor heart attacks in recent months, officials said.

Prosecutors Disagree

Prosecutor Robert Clementz, who for 10 years fought a fruitless legal battle to get Stenberg convicted on several counts of economic fraud, said after the heart implant operation that he no longer expects to meet Stenberg in court.

But national prosecutor Magnus Sjoberg said Stenberg will be summoned to stand trial as soon as he is fit.

Stenberg, who Semb said had “begged for an artificial heart,” was awake today and drank water, doctors said.

Semb, only the second surgeon in the world to implant a Jarvik-7 metal and plastic pump after Dr. William C. DeVries, said, “We are making every effort to discharge the patient after three to four weeks.”

“We are very hopeful because there are as of now no signs of serious problems,” he added.