Dr. Sanjeev Kumar Case: Billing Fraud, Device Reuse, and Sentencing

The Dr. Sanjeev Kumar case ended in a federal jury convicting the Memphis gynecologic oncologist on 40 counts in January 2026 for reusing single-use surgical instruments on thousands of women and billing more than $41 million to Medicare and Medicaid for procedures the government said were medically unnecessary. Kumar owned the Poplar Avenue Clinic in East Memphis. Sentencing is set for July 7, 2026, and his lawyers have said he will appeal.¹²

What He Was Convicted Of

After a trial of about three and a half weeks before Chief U.S. District Judge Sheryl H. Lipman in the Western District of Tennessee, and five days of deliberations, the jury on January 8, 2026, returned guilty verdicts on 40 of 46 counts: 18 counts of adulteration of medical devices, 16 counts of misbranding medical devices, and 6 counts of health care fraud.³ The jury could not agree on the remaining six counts, and the judge declared a mistrial on those.² Prosecutors asked the court to detain him until sentencing. The judge refused.⁴

The case at trial was narrower than the one first charged. A grand jury in the Western District of Tennessee had returned a sealed indictment on February 27, 2025 with 23 counts, some of them alleging that Kumar had induced people to travel to Memphis for sexual acts.⁵⁶ A judge later dismissed 17 counts, and a superseding indictment reframed the case around device adulteration, misbranding, and health care fraud, growing it to 46 counts. Those sexual-coercion allegations did not go to the jury.⁷

The Billing Scheme

Between September 2019 and April 2024, Kumar and the advanced practitioners he supervised performed more than 15,000 hysteroscopy-with-biopsy procedures on 5,559 Medicare and Medicaid patients at the Poplar Avenue Clinic. Prosecutors said those procedures were not medically necessary and that Kumar told vulnerable women he needed to perform invasive procedures to screen for endometrial cancer when the clinical basis was not there.⁸

Total billings for the hysteroscopy procedures exceeded $41 million. Medicare and Medicaid alone paid Kumar more than $4.8 million, on top of what privately insured patients contributed.⁸

How the Single-Use Device Reuse Worked

Under FDA rules, a single-use device is meant for one patient in one procedure. Anyone who reprocesses that kind of device is treated as a manufacturer and has to meet the same requirements as the original maker: premarket clearance, validated cleaning and sterilization, quality-system regulations, and labeling that identifies the device as reprocessed. A reprocessed device without that labeling is misbranded under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.⁹

The government’s numbers were stark. Kumar bought fewer than 200 new single-use hysteroscopes across five years to perform more than 15,000 procedures. When agents executed a search warrant at the clinic in April 2024, three of six single-use graspers purchased in 2019 were still in service. Prosecutors said Kumar “routinely failed to subject the reusable devices to vital reprocessing steps between patient use, thereby endangering patient safety.”⁸

What Witnesses Told the Jury

A nurse practitioner testified she felt “somewhat pressured” by Kumar to perform hysteroscopies and biopsies as part of initial workups. She said she was uncomfortable using the instruments and described scopes being rinsed in sink water and returned to a bucket of cleaning solution.⁷

A medical assistant testified that staff were told not to clean scopes during clinic hours and were not paid overtime to do it after. She also said Kumar spoke to her about her grand jury testimony and told her, “I have a practice, you don’t,” which she took as a warning.⁷

Andrew Moore, a vice president of sales at a medical device company, testified that he had visited the clinic to troubleshoot faulty instrument handles, saw blue stains on instruments, and raised concerns with an FDA special agent afterward. Rowena Schimmel, a territory sales manager for Cooper Surgical, testified she had personally demonstrated to Kumar that certain instruments were designed for single use. HHS Special Agent Edward Miller described the April 2024 search, in which authorities seized paper records, graspers, and hysteroscopes. Many instruments were sitting in containers of liquid solution on countertops or in cabinets. After the search, the clinic hired someone specifically to clean scopes throughout the day.⁷

What the Defense Argued

Lead defense attorney Ronald Chapman told the jury that the clinic’s cleaning processes matched practices approved by the CDC and used by other physicians. “We believe that when the government says you can do something, you should be able to do it, especially if you are a doctor,” Chapman said.⁴

Before trial, the defense pointed to a Tennessee Department of Health investigation that followed the 2024 search warrant and said the department “found insufficient evidence to support any allegations that Dr. Kumar was adulterating or misbranding hysteroscopes.” The defense also cited a September 2024 letter from the Tennessee Medical Board it said cleared Kumar and a Medicaid pre-payment audit of his claims. Defense counsel argued the prosecution had not put on expert medical testimony to show the procedures were medically unnecessary.

After the verdict, Chapman raised additional concerns, including an allegation that prosecutors failed to turn over a cell phone belonging to a cooperating witness and what he called the “somewhat unprecedented” fact that a federal agent in the case had deleted data from his own phone.¹⁰

Sentencing and Appeal

In March 2026, Judge Lipman granted a Remmer hearing to look at whether the jury had been subject to improper outside influence. The hearing was set for April 23, 2026, and sentencing was reset the same day to July 7, 2026.¹

On May 8, 2026, a federal judge denied Kumar’s motions for a mistrial, acquittal, and new trial. Kumar said publicly that “important matters remain before the court” and that “the public deserves to understand that this process is still ongoing.” His attorneys said further filings, including matters under seal, remain active, and confirmed Kumar intends to appeal.²

Kumar faces up to 10 years in prison on each health care fraud count and up to 3 years on each adulteration or misbranding count, a theoretical maximum above 100 years.⁸

If You Were a Patient

The investigation was led by the FBI along with the HHS Office of Inspector General, the FDA Office of Criminal Investigations, and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.⁸ The FBI runs an online portal for anyone who believes they were treated at the Poplar Avenue Clinic and may be affected.¹¹

On the regulatory side, the Tennessee Board of Medical Examiners suspended Kumar’s authority to prescribe Schedule II controlled substances, pending final disposition of the criminal case.¹² At least one plaintiffs’ firm has publicly solicited former patients for potential civil malpractice and negligence claims, though no filed civil lawsuits were identified in available records.

1
Yahoo News. Mistrial Denied for Federally Convicted Memphis Gynecologist
2
Fox 13 Memphis. New Trial Denied for Memphis Gynecologist Convicted on Federal Charges
3
HHS Office of Inspector General. Federal Jury Finds Memphis Physician Guilty of Adulterated and Misbranded Medical Devices and Health Care Fraud
4
Action News 5. Jury Finds Dr. Sanjeev Kumar Guilty on Majority of 46 Charges in Federal Fraud, Negligence Case
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CourtListener. United States v. Kumar, 2:25-cr-20032
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WREG. FBI Investigates Victims of East Memphis Doctor
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WREG. Dr. Kumar Trial Continues to Day 3
8
U.S. Department of Justice. Federal Jury Finds Memphis Physician Guilty of Adulterated and Misbranded Medical Devices and Health Care Fraud
9
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Reprocessing Single-Use Medical Devices – Information for Health Care Facilities
10
WREG. Dr. Kumar’s Legal Battle Persists After 40-Count Fraud Conviction
11
FBI. Seeking Patient Information in Dr. Sanjeev Kumar Investigation
12
Tennessee Department of Health. Disciplinary Action Report – April 2025