Lawsuit: Doctor used hydrogen peroxide to treat COVID symptoms

MORGAN COUNTY, Tenn. (WSMV) - Jana Sutoova still struggles with what she allowed to happen to her 80-year-old father, Stefan.

“My dad was an extremely kind person,” Sutoova said. “I never thought this would happen this way. Because of how it happened. And how he left us.”

In December 2021, Sutoova, her father Stefan Suto and her husband Steve Bennun all developed symptoms of COVID-19, although none tested positive for it at the time.

Eighteen days after battling a fever, Suto would be dead in a hotel room in Florida.

Not from sickness, but rather hemolytic anemia due to toxicities of inhaled and intravenous hydrogen peroxide, according to an independent autopsy.

Why the Morgan County, Tennessee family would even agree to hydrogen peroxide treatment is an example of the dangerous mindset of treating COVID with experimental methods, championed online by doctors preaching alternative treatments for the virus.

“They instilled fear. And I think that we had that fear as a family,” Sutoova said.

“In some respects, we were duped.”

At the end of 2021, Sutoova and her family were deep in the anti-vaccine movement.

Not only did the family attend anti-vaccine rallies, but they also expanded their already popular YouTube channel, which focused on religion, to include the medical freedom movement.

It was there that they first interviewed Dr. Carrie Madej, an internal medicine doctor from Georgia, who frequently spoke online about the dangers of the vaccine.

“Do you feel like you were duped?” asked WSMV4 Investigates.

“In some respects, we were duped,” Sutoova said.

According to the civil lawsuit the family would later file against Madej, once they all started feeling symptoms of COVID, Madej offered to come to their house.

“She said she has therapies that can make us better very quickly,” Sutoova said.

Sutoova said she suffered the worst of the symptoms in her family and did not think twice about allowing Madej to administer her an IV.

She would later learn that Bennun knowingly allowed Madej to inject him with hydrogen peroxide.

Bennun told WSMV4 Investigates that his father-in-law, Stefan Suto had previously received hydrogen peroxide treatment in lesser amounts eight years prior.

But Bennun said he had no idea how much hydrogen peroxide Madej would give Suto that day.

According to the lawsuit, Madej gave Suto 21 mL of 3% hydrogen peroxide and .5 mL of distilled water in a nebulizer.

The lawsuit also claims that Madej gave Sutoova, Bennun and Suto 500 mL of D5NS with 21 ML of 3% hydrogen peroxide.

According to the lawsuit, Suto “experienced a rapid decline in health.”

“There wasn’t any part of you that thought, hydrogen peroxide? That sounds like something you wouldn’t want in your body,” asked WSMV4 Investigates.

“At the time, I just truly trusted that Carrie Madej knows what she was doing,” Sutoova said.

According to the lawsuit, when Sutoova asked for further medical treatment, Madej refused.

According to an independent autopsy, Sutoova and Bennun then reached out to two alternative medicine physicians in Florida for help.

Sutoova said Bennun then drove Suto to Gulf Breeze, Florida, where Suto continued to receive Madej’s treatment plan, but under the direction of the two doctors.

Because there is no mention of the other doctors in Florida in the lawsuit, WSMV4 is not naming them at this time.

In the hotel room, Sutoova said the hydrogen peroxide continued until her father’s death. Photographs of Suto taken by the family show his decline.

Bennun was with Suto in the hotel room.

“When you saw what they were doing, didn’t any warning bells go off in your head?” asked WSMV4 Investigates.

“At that point, I was convinced what (the doctors) were doing was actually helping him. It wasn’t until later that he started to decline,” Bennun said.

After Suto was buried in Florida, Sutoova said she asked the medical examiner to exhume the body.

So Sutoova said she had her father’s body exhumed and hired an independent autopsy conducted to determine how his father died.

When the independent autopsy was completed, Sutoova learned his death was caused by the peroxide treatment.

“I trusted these physicians. I trusted physicians out of that (medical freedom) movement,” Sutoova said.

WSMV4 Investigates left a message for Madej on her phone as well as at four different email addresses, but she did not respond by our deadline.

“Misguided and misinformed theories.”

Suto’s family then reached out to Morgan County District Attorney Russell Johnson, inquiring about pressing charges against Madej.

In a letter sent to Sutoova, Johnson outlines that they are partly to blame for Suto’s death.

“I know this is not at all what you want to hear, but each of you as family members must re-evaluate your misguided and misinformed theories that led to your actions in the treatment of Mr. Suto. I realize that the COVID pandemic was an uncertain time, but even during that uncertainty, no reasonable person would have continued down this path of ‘treatment’, especially when his condition was not responding favorably,” Johnson wrote.

Johnson confirmed to WSMV4 Investigates that he wrote the letter to the family and that he would not be prosecuting.

While Johnson said he was deeply troubled about Suto’s death, the statute of limitations had already passed to prosecute Madej.

Johnson also criticized the family for not taking Suto to the hospital.

Sutoova said at the time, her family had been told by doctors in the medical freedom movement that the COVID procedures in hospitals were killing people.

Johnson also pointed out a recent episode of the family’s YouTube channel, in which Bennun explored the flat earth theory, citing it as a reason he would be a “problematic witness” to a potential jury.

“The (district attorney) is ultimately saying, ‘Look, we think you’re conspiracy theorists. You should have known what you were doing was nuts,” asked WSMV4 Investigates.

“There was such a division in the medical community, had literally thousands of doctors that went what they called anti-vax,” Bennun said.

Bennun said along with Madej, the alternative medicine doctors in Florida who continued the hydrogen peroxide treatment stopped speaking with the family.

“They all turned their backs on us. That really began to cause us to question this movement and what their real motives were behind it,” Bennun said.

Sutoova and Bennun sued in Morgan County civil court and were granted default judgment when Madej failed to show up for court.

Sutoova’s lawyer said they are still waiting on the judge to issue a ruling for payment.

Georgia records show Madej voluntarily surrendered her medical license in January 2023, but the reasons behind that action are not public records.

“When you read what the prosecutor wrote, it reads essentially, ‘You need to go back and re-examine what you allowed to happen.’ Do you accept blame for this as well?” asked WSMV4 Investigates.

“I don’t accept blame. The reason why is that at the time, I believed I was doing everything I could for the life of my father,” Sutoova said.

If there is something you think we should know about this story, email us at Jeremy.finley@wsmv.com

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