A 43-year-old Miami man and a 43-year-old Miramar man have been sentenced to federal prison for running a scheme that billed Medicare $34.8 million for thousands of orthotic braces that patients never requested and never needed. Kenneth Charles Kessler III and Michael Andrew Gomez pleaded guilty in May to one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud, and a judge handed down the sentences this month.
Kessler was sentenced to 33 months in prison, while Gomez received 24 months, according to the Sun Sentinel. The gap in prison time stands out because Gomez actually profited more from the scheme — over $2.3 million, compared to more than $1.4 million for Kessler, per federal sentencing documents. Federal sentencing outcomes weigh guidelines, criminal history, and cooperation alongside the raw dollar figures, which helps explain why the man who made less money got the longer sentence.
The two men owned and operated seven durable medical equipment supply companies based in Florida, and Department of Justice records published earlier this month indicate the companies existed in part so billing could be shifted from one entity to another whenever Medicare suspended payments to a specific company. That rotation let the scheme keep running even as regulators tried to shut off the money at individual businesses.
How the Scam Reached Beneficiaries Nationwide
According to court records, the operation paid bribes and kickbacks to marketing companies that ran aggressive telemarketing campaigns targeting Medicare beneficiaries, then paid telemedicine providers to sign off on fake doctors' orders without ever examining a patient. Kessler and Gomez used those fraudulent orders to ship orthotic braces to Medicare beneficiaries across the country, then claimed payment from Medicare for the shipments, per the Department of Justice.
The beneficiaries who ended up with the braces, in many cases, had neither requested them nor needed them. U.S. Attorney Jason Reding Quiñones said the defendants built a $34.8 million scheme around unnecessary braces, fraudulent doctors' orders, and illegal kickbacks, adding that Medicare is not a blank check for fraudsters.
FBI Miami Field Office official Colin McDonald described the mechanics in similarly blunt terms, saying the defendants paid kickbacks for fake doctors' orders, shifted billing among companies, and pocketed millions belonging to taxpayers. McDonald also said the pair billed Medicare $34.8 million for braces that patients did not need or request. The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, working with the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the federal agency tasked with finding and stopping waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid programs.
Part of a Broader Federal Crackdown
The prosecution falls under the Department of Justice's Health Care Fraud Strike Force Program, which pairs prosecutors with FBI and HHS-OIG agents in high-fraud regions and has charged more than 6,200 defendants nationwide since 2007, according to the Department of Justice. Those defendants have collectively billed more than $45 billion to federal health care programs and private insurers over that span. More recently, the case was handled under the DOJ's National Fraud Enforcement Division, a component created in April to centralize white-collar prosecution and apply data analytics against federal benefit fraud.
Orthotic brace billing has become a particular focus of that enforcement push. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services reported in February that federal efforts stopped more than $1.5 billion in suspected fraudulent durable medical equipment billing in 2025 alone, alongside new enrollment restrictions, according to Medical Economics. The broader federal health care fraud crackdown is part of the context for this case.
South Florida's Brace Fraud Pattern Continues
This case is far from an isolated one in the region. Hoodline previously reported on Broward men sentenced in a $6.9 million Medicare brace scam that used offshore call centers in the Philippines to launder $2.2 million, with sentences ranging from 60 to 78 months. Other South Florida cases are referenced in the broader discussion, but the available sources here do not identify or describe them.
Nationally, the pattern has drawn comparably steep penalties elsewhere. A Georgia telemedicine company owner received a 10-year federal prison sentence and a $66 million restitution order in July for paying bribes to doctors to generate fake orthotic brace orders for Medicare beneficiaries, according to ArentFox Schiff. Jean Wilson, a Georgia telemedicine company owner, received a 10-year federal prison sentence and was ordered to pay $66 million in restitution for paying bribes connected to fraudulent orthotic-brace orders, with the sentence announced on June 30, 2026. The case adds another entry to the pattern of telemarketing-to-telemedicine-to-DME fraud described above.
