Chicago Man Herbert Kimble Sentenced to 20 Years for $365 Million Medicare Fraud Scheme Run From the Philippines
COLUMBIA, South Carolina — Herbert Leon Kimble, 60, of Chicago, has been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison for conspiracy to defraud the United States and failure to appear, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of South Carolina announced. He was also ordered to forfeit more than $195 million and to pay more than $199 million in restitution to Medicare.
According to the Justice Department, Kimble helped orchestrate a nationwide scheme that used offshore call centers and sham telemedicine companies to generate medically unnecessary prescriptions for orthotic braces. The operation recruited vulnerable Medicare beneficiaries through deceptive advertising and sold their information, together with signed doctors' orders, to durable medical equipment (DME) companies in exchange for illegal kickbacks disguised as legitimate business payments. The medical professionals involved rarely conducted real consultations and simply signed preselected brace orders to maximize Medicare reimbursement.
Acting as a central architect from the Philippines, Kimble coordinated the procurement of patients and prescriptions and supplied them to DME companies that collectively billed Medicare for hundreds of millions of dollars in fraudulent claims. In total, Kimble caused more than $365 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare, of which Medicare reimbursed more than $199 million, and he personally profited by more than $195 million, using proceeds in part to buy a luxury condo at the Shangri-La hotel in the Philippines.
Kimble originally pleaded guilty in 2019, later failed to appear for multiple court proceedings in 2024, was placed on the FBI's Most Wanted Fraudsters list, and was apprehended in the Philippines days later and returned to the United States. U.S. District Judge Joseph F. Anderson Jr. sentenced him to 240 months in prison followed by three years of court-ordered supervision; there is no parole in the federal system. The case was investigated by the FBI, the HHS Office of Inspector General and IRS Criminal Investigation.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 位于南卡罗来纳州 Columbia 的 Strom Thurmond 联邦大楼与联邦法院（w_lemay 摄，CC BY-SA 2.0）— via Wikimedia Commons
