Criminal Investigative Updates

Dr. Kingsley R. Chin, the founder, president, and CEO of SpineFrontier, Inc., a Massachusetts-based medical device company, was sentenced to one year of supervised release with the first six months to be served in home confinement. Chin was also ordered to pay a fine of $9,500, in addition to $40,000 he agreed to pay as part of a related civil settlement, and $855,000 that his company, KICVentures, agreed to pay as part of the same settlement. In May 2025, Chin pleaded guilty to one count of false statements. Under the Physician Payment Sunshine Act, device manufacturers are required to report any payments or transfers of value to physicians. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services maintains a database, via the Open Payments website, which makes all such payments or transfers of value publicly accessible. SpineFrontier offered surgeons the opportunity to engage in purported consulting on product development. Specifically, Chin directed his employees to report the payment of fees paid to a surgeon as consulting fees that were not compensation for actual consulting work. The VA OIG, Health and Human Services OIG, US Postal Inspection Service, and FBI investigated this case.

Aditya Humad of Cambridge, Massachusetts, chief financial officer of SpineFrontier, Inc., pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute. Humad bribed surgeons to use SpineFrontier’s products, and in turn, the company received millions of dollars in revenue from surgeries performed by those surgeons. The VA OIG, the Department of Health and Human Services OIG, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the US Postal Inspection Service investigated this case.

James Bradford, a US Army veteran from Kansas, and his wife Equanda Bradford are accused of providing false and fraudulent information to the VA about his caregiver needs and her caregiving functions resulting in the receipt of $172,426 in disability compensation to which they were not entitled. They are charged with one count of conspiracy and one count of theft of public money, property, or records. The VA OIG and the General Services Administration OIG are investigating this case.

Mehrdad Gerami, of Coos Bay, Oregon, was charged with conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud in connection with medical sleep study testing resulting in a loss of more than $2 million. Allegedly, Gerami owned and operated Coastal Diagnostic Testing Group and Coastal Diagnostic.  Both companies engaged in submitting fraudulent claims to the Veterans Health Administration, the Department of Health and Human Services, and private insurance companies for sleep tests allegedly conducted in the office when, in fact, they were conducted either at home or not at all. The VA OIG and the Health and Human Services OIG investigated this case as part of the 2026 National Health Care Fraud Takedown.