Ringleader of $1.2B healthcare scheme to spend 20 years in prison, SC judge decides

COLUMBIA — A U.S. citizen who pleaded guilty to running an international healthcare scam, then fleeing to the Philippines for two years, will spend 20 years in prison, a federal judge decided Monday.

Herb Kimble, 60, was the ringleader of the operation, which prosecutors believe to be among the largest in the nation’s history. His company swindled $1.2 billion from taxpayers. More than 80 people have been charged in the scheme, prosecutors said.

Kimble will have to pay back more than $199 million to the Medicare program. That’s the amount investigators believe he earned running the operation, U.S. District Judge Joseph Anderson said during a sentencing hearing Monday.

It’s unclear how he can pay that back.

“He was the architect; he was the engine; and he was the fuel that preyed upon elderly, disabled and the infirm,” state U.S. Attorney Bryan Stirling told reporters.

The scheme dates back at least a decade, prosecutors said. Beginning in at least 2016, Kimble’s company ran advertisements offering back, shoulder, wrist and knee braces at low prices to elderly and disabled people covered by Medicare. His company also bought contact information of people enrolled in the government-funded healthcare system to reach out directly.

At a call center in the Philippines, employees took down identifying information about callers, who often had cognitive impairments such as dementia, and attempted to sell them multiple medical braces, according to court documents.

Information on buyers was sent to a network of doctors and nurses who accepted kickbacks to sign off on prescriptions for medical equipment without examining, testing or even meeting the patient. The medical professionals prescribed only the braces offered through Kimble’s company, which were mass produced and not medically necessary or fitted to the people receiving them.

Kimble’s company then sold those prescriptions and customers’ information to fraudulent medical equipment companies, which fraudulently billed Medicare, according to court filings.

In 2019, Kimble brokered a deal with investigators to help gather evidence against fellow fraudsters involved in the scheme in exchange for a shorter sentence. Kimble’s attorneys and prosecutors agreed he could serve out his time on probation instead of in prison and pay back $40 million, which was the amount he was estimated to have in money and real estate, attorneys said.

For years, Kimble held wiretapped interviews with business partners that helped investigators nail down other cases. He turned over all of his company’s financial records and contact information.

In the meantime, though, Kimble, who was released on bond, made bad investments with his money, including giving $10 million to a concert promoter who promised to give him back $17 million and instead gave him nothing, said Jim Griffin, Kimble’s defense attorney. By the time Kimble’s sentencing hearing came around in 2024, he had no way of paying the agreed upon amount, he said.

Kimble instead fled to the Philippines, where he evaded authorities for two years. In June 2026, days after placing Kimble on the nation’s “most wanted fraudsters” list, law enforcement arrested him in a casino, said Samantha Usher, the lead prosecutor for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Prosecutors struck Kimble’s previous plea agreement, which had required him to show up for court hearings, and charged him with three counts of failing to appear.

“Kimble was promised an extraordinary benefit for his cooperation,” prosecutors wrote in court filings. “Bafflingly, he breached that plea, fled, and remained at large for nearly two years. There is no one to blame for these changes in circumstances but Kimble.”

Although Kimble was from Chicago and lived in the Philippines, he did business in South Carolina, which was where investigators first connected him to crimes. That led to the charges in the Palmetto State, prosecutors said.

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Kimble apologized through tears for his actions Monday.

When he realized he couldn’t pay the amount he owed, he panicked and ran, hoping to make back the money, he said.

He also struggled with an opioid addiction after his doctors prescribed him painkillers following a rotator cuff surgery, he said.

“I’ve asked myself countless times why I made the decisions I did,” Kimble said.

Kimble and Griffin both pointed to years of cooperation with investigators as a reason for a reduced sentence. Kimble has repaid $9 million toward his total restitution and another $5 million in bond, Griffin said, acknowledging that’s a small fraction of what he owes.

But cooperation has to come with accountability, which Kimble tried to escape when he went on the lam, Usher said, adding that Kimble was motivated “not by desperation but by greed.”

Kimble’s crime was not victimless, she said. He exploited thousands of elderly and disabled people, including selling their information, and stole from taxpayers, said.

The 20-year sentence, which was the longest possible under Kimble’s new plea agreement, sent a message to fellow fraudsters that they can’t get away with their crimes, Stirling said.

“Healthcare fraud is just not acceptable,” he said. “You’re literally taking from the elderly, you’re taking from people in need, you’re taking resources that could have been used for someone’s grandmother that needed it or someone else. I mean, it’s just a terrible thing to do.”

Courtesy of South Carolina Daily Gazette