Shoeboxes full of money

Gary S. Kimmel was a Chicago dentist who lived with his wife at Marina City and owned several condominium units there. They lived in unit 5618, which they had owned since 2000, and rented out eight other units. An additional unit had been sold in July 2005.

Kimmel served on the Marina Towers Condominium Association board of directors, including the board’s security and screening committees, until he resigned on January 19, 2006.

Katherine Brusuelas was a Special Agent of the FBI and a member of the Violent Crimes Task Force, which was investigating a prostitution ring operating in Chicago, Detroit, and Honolulu. It was part of “Innocence Lost,” an ongoing national investigation into criminal activity involving prostitution.

Robert Lewis Young, who went by the nickname “Blue Diamond,” was a pimp. According to agent Brusuelas, he recruited women, including minors, as prostitutes and brought them to various cities, often using force and threats. Young rented an apartment from Kimmel and was often seen with him. Kimmel says he knew him as “Lawrence Benjamin.”

The FBI knew about Young first, and by tapping his phone they were led to Kimmel. Young, said the FBI, would pay Kimmel to house, transport, and perform dental work on the prostitutes. Kimmel owned a fleet of luxury vehicles, including a 2005 Mercedes ML350, 2005 Lexus ES330, 2005 Audi A4, 2005 Infiniti QX56, and a 2005 Mercedes G55. Two other Mercedes (including one worth $109,000) and one Lexus had been sold.

In July 2004, a 17-year-old woman told authorities that in March she had met Robert Young, the pimp, at a bar in Honolulu. She soon started working for Young as a prostitute. She flew from Honolulu to Chicago and somehow wound up on the 56th floor balcony of a condo unit at Marina City that was owned by Dr. Kimmel. That’s where she was photographed for a web site, Eros.com, that advertised the services of prostitutes.

She also got her teeth cleaned by Dr. Kimmel, but was not charged for the service, nor did she have to fill out any forms. Young then drove the woman to Detroit in a Corvette registered to Kimmel, which had a vanity license plate that read “SECRET.”

On February 26, 2004, Officer Yang of the Chicago Vice Enforcement Unit saw an ad for another Chicago prostitute on Eros.com. He called a number and was told to go to unit 5620 at Marina City, which was owned by Kimmel. Money changed hands, backup was called in, and Young was arrested.

According to the Honolulu woman, Dr. Kimmel provided dental work to prostitutes who looked to be 17 to 20 years old, wore shabby clothes, and appeared to have been abused and neglected. Some girls had bruises on their faces, or missing teeth, like they had been punched in the mouth.

On February 10, 2005, undercover agents had Kimmel under surveillance. He was talking with an informant outside House of Blues, who got Kimmel to identify Young as the pimp he worked with.

“That’s the pimp,” he said when the informant commented on a black male he had seen driving one of Kimmel’s cars.

Another informant said girls were sometimes sent to Chicago with money to give to Kimmel. Kimmel once received a shoe box sent by FedEx that contained $20,000. Another shoe box was said to contain $35,000.

In July 2005, one of the prostitutes was pulled over by Michigan State Police in a 2005 Lexus registered to Kimmel. When police called Kimmel and asked how he knew the woman, Kimmel said, “She’s one of my patients and a friend. I let her use the car.”

When told the woman had a history of prostitution, Kimmel replied, “I was not aware of that...not aware of those things.”

The FBI listened in on Kimmel’s phone conversations well into October 2005. On September 23, at about 10:45 a.m., speaking with a representative of Town & Country Credit Corporation, the representative asked Kimmel how many cars he owned and Kimmel said he had “seven or eight.”

“Oh wow, you collect them?”

“Yeah, I maneuver them a lot. Depends on my mood for the day what I drive.”

“Wow, so...you have a Corvette, you have a Mercedes I saw, Volkswagon, what else do you have?”

“Ah, Hemi Chrysler, Viper, Corvette, what else is there? It’s just a [menagerie] of stuff. It’s ah, like I said, whatever I feel interested in for the day.”

“Right, you have one for every day of the week, that’s great.”

In October 2005, Kimmel’s cars were showing up in Michigan in the possession of other participants in the prostitution ring. Michigan police called Kimmel to ask why one of his car registrations had a Michigan address. Kimmel explained he had an apartment in Michigan and stayed there occasionally. But when an FBI agent drove to the address, it turned out to be a UPS Store.

Sergeant Price of the Michigan State Police said to Kimmel, “I’m just curious, you have eight vehicles and more than half are being driven by a pimp and prostitutes?”

Kimmel replied, “Well see I don’t know that, that’s the first time I’m hearing something like this.”

Meanwhile, bank records obtained by the FBI showed that $30,000 in money orders had been deposited into Kimmel’s account at MB National Bank, from October 15, 2002, to November 13, 2003, in $500 increments. Most of them were from Robert Young. Other deposits included a $20,000 cashiers check from First Hawaiian Bank.

Between June 2000 and August 2005, $530,000 was transferred from a bank account at Fifth Third Bank that Kimmel had for his dental practice, to the account at MB National Bank. That was in addition to $300,000 in other deposits. And the only problem was that the FBI could not explain this income as coming from Kimmel’s dental business or as rental income from properties he owned at Marina City.

FBI agents searched Kimmel’s dental office on November 18, 2005. That same day, they raided his condo unit at Marina City and arrested Kimmel.

Recalled Kimmel in an October 2006 interview with Chicago Magazine, “I was getting out of the car in the parking lot at Marina City when two agents approached me and flashed their badges.” After confirming that he was Gary Kimmel, the agents told him he was under arrest for human trafficking.

According to a motion filed in April 2008 by his attorneys, Joseph Lopez and Paul Zido, Kimmel was told he would not go to jail if he cooperated with the FBI’s investigation of two other people. The deal was contingent on Kimmel not hiring a lawyer.

While cooperating with the investigation, Kimmel made several incriminating statements but was planning to enter a guilty plea to avoid jail time. Kimmel’s attorneys say FBI agents made “implied promises” that the more he told them, the less likely he would receive a prison sentence.

Kimmel also was not allowed to claim vehicles of his that had been seized – and when he did so, the prosecution dropped him as a cooperating witness.

Lopez and Zido maintained that Kimmel’s statements made after his arrest were not admissible as evidence because they were made in the course of plea negotiations.

On January 18, 2006, Kimmel was indicted on charges he laundered money for the nationwide prostitution ring. He committed this crime, said the United States Attorney’s Office, when he attempted to conceal the fact the vehicles were for a pimp – by making false statements to credit companies, insurance firms and law enforcement agencies.

The government wanted Kimmel to forfeit approximately $405,000 he was believed to have been paid to purchase and maintain the vehicles used by the ring, the nine condo units (worth $1 million) that he and his wife owned at Marina City, and seven vehicles. Also seized had been personal computers, and gold, silver, copper, and platinum coins.

On January 26, Kimmel pleaded not guilty and was released on $100,000 bail. His lawyer, Joseph Lopez, said that if prostitution went on in Kimmel’s condominium units, “it was without his knowledge, his consent, and it was going on behind his back.”

(Left) Attorney Joseph Lopez represented Frank Calabrese Sr. in the 2007 Chicago “Family Secrets” Mob Trial.

Kimmel denied knowing the young women were prostitutes. “I never made that connection in any way, shape, or form,” he told Chicago Magazine. “I knew they were escorts. That was never a question. But there is a significant difference. Escorts get hired to accompany a guy and look pretty on his arm and make him feel important. So what? There’s nothing wrong with that.”

After Kimmel was indicted, the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation ordered that he immediately stop his dental practice. In June 2006, they indefinitely suspended Kimmel’s dentist license, for a minimum of one year, and fined him $50,000 for providing dental services to prostitutes on behalf of their pimps, assisting in the operation of an interstate prostitution ring from his dental office, billing for services not rendered, patient abandonment, failure to properly diagnose and treat periodontal disease, and advertising violations.

Kimmel had been a dentist since the 1980s and started his own practice in 2002, located at 233 East Erie, Suite 406. According to his web site, which was accessible as late as February 4, 2006, he was a graduate and former faculty member of Northwestern University Dental School.

“Updated with the most current knowledge and techniques in dentistry today, Dr. Kimmel continues to provide international patients with respect and the highest quality care. Dr. Kimmel is a strong advocate of continuing education and generally attains four to five times the required number of continuing education hours required by the state licensing agencies to maintain licensor.”

Under “languages spoken,” the site mentioned English, Tagalog, Visayan, and basic Spanish. Tagalog and Visayan are languages spoken in the Philippines. Kimmel met and married his wife, Mona Lisa, on a three-week trip in 1992 to the Philippines. The couple had one daughter. From a previous marriage, Kimmel had two sons.

233 East Erie, a mixed-use building, from the web site of the leasing agent, Chicago Future, Inc. As of December 19, 2007, Kimmel’s name was still on the building directory in the lobby. Suite 406 was occupied by East Erie Dental Associates PC, with Kimmel’s name on the front door along with two other names. The building is across the street from Northwestern Memorial Hospital.

Trial date rescheduled

In December 2007, Kimmel was awaiting trial scheduled for February 11 at 10:30 a.m. The judge would be Blanch M. Manning, age 73, who was appointed in 1994. In 1987, she became the first African-American woman appointed to the Illinois Appellate Court.

Judge Blanch M. Manning was once an attorney for United Airlines. She is also a jazz musician.

But defense attorney Joseph Lopez had another trial at that time and filed a motion to reset Kimmel’s trial date.

On January 15, at a brief hearing at the Dirksen Courthouse, Lopez worked out a new trial date with Judge Manning and Julie Ruder of the United States Attorney’s Office. The trial was rescheduled for Monday, June 2.

Kimmel appeared at the hearing. He was not addressed by Manning and did not speak when he was before her.

Wiretaps key to government case against Kimmel

In a court document filed on April 21, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald offered a glimpse of his case against Marina City resident Gary S. Kimmel. Fitzgerald made his case for the admission as evidence of statements from people involved in the ring other than Kimmel.

Fitzgerald described a conspiracy among Kimmel and three alleged pimps – Robert Lewis Young, Jody Spears, and Mark Luke White.

Young and Spears were tenants of Kimmel at Marina City. Fitzgerald says Kimmel’s apartments were used by prostitutes working for Young and Spears. He claims Kimmel knew Young was a pimp and agreed to purchase luxury vehicles for use by him and his prostitutes.

Between March 2002 and November 2005, Kimmel is said to have accepted about $375,000 from Young and his prostitutes, mostly to pay for expenses related to the vehicles. They also paid Kimmel for dental work, money that was not, according to the government, reported as income to his dental practice.

Kimmel also allegedly paid for airline tickets and bail money for the prostitutes, as well as $10,000 in advertising expenses for Young’s prostitution business.

Much of the evidence would be from court-authorized wiretaps of Kimmel’s cell phone and office line. The taps included a July 2005 conversation in which Young and Kimmel discussed a prostitute named Kenyatta who had taken a car owned by Kimmel without Young’s permission. Young tells Kimmel he will “cut all them legs off for you.”

“I’ll get the car,” says Young. “I’m going to fly someone up there to get it. I’ll pick her up and slam her on her [expletive] back.”

One of Kimmel’s dental patients, according to Fitzgerald, was a prostitute named Brooke who lost several teeth in a severe beating by Mark Luke White. Kimmel was paid for this work, the government alleges, in sexual favors for a friend of Kimmel by another of White’s prostitutes.

During a phone call to Kimmel, White was recorded as saying, “Hey man, thanks man, I love you man, you know we goin’ to keep on, we goin’ to keep on scratchin’ each others back, you know,” to which Kimmel responds, “Okay, that’s good.”

 Summaries of wiretaps of Kimmel and Robert Lewis Young

Kimmel pleads guilty

In late May 2008, it was learned that Kimmel was going to change his plea to guilty. According to court documents, a Change of Plea Hearing had been scheduled for May 29. A plea agreement was due no later than 24 hours before the hearing. If an agreement was not worked out, a pretrial conference would be held that day.

Randall Samborn, Public Information Officer for the United States Attorney’s Office, was cautious, pointing out the change of plea was not absolutely certain. “He may or may not be pleading guilty. I can’t say for sure whether he will or won’t until he actually does so, and we’ll have to see what happens in court.”

On May 29 at 3:16 p.m., Gary S. Kimmel pleaded guilty to federal charges of money laundering. A second charge of racketeering had been dismissed.

The Marina City resident, who was caught up in a nationwide prostitution ring, explained to Judge Manning that he did not know at the start that he was doing anything wrong – but once he did realize it, he did not stop.

“I rented a couple of units to unsavory characters,” he told the judge in U.S. District Court. When his tenants approached him about helping them purchase vehicles, he agreed to help but “I should have known earlier that something wasn’t right.”

When asked by Judge Manning if he was satisfied with the plea agreement that he signed, Kimmel’s voice choked with emotion as he replied, “Satisfaction is not always the way it works out, but I’ve been told it is in my best interests to proceed.”

Manning quizzed Kimmel on his competency to change his plea, and his understanding of the rights he was giving up. In the end, she accepted his plea and scheduled sentencing for September 25.

Kimmel was flanked by his attorneys, Joseph Lopez and Paul Zido. Representing the U.S. Government was Julie Ruder.

“Both sides made concessions in this case,” said Lopez. “It was a fair deal for both sides despite what others may think. This deal was the only way to dispose of this case. To go to trial would have been a disaster since [Kimmel] made admissions to the FBI agents after he was told he would not go to jail if he cooperated.”

With his dentist license suspended since June 2006, Kimmel told Judge Manning he currently worked as a bank courier. When asked about his health, the 59-year-old said he had a hernia, sleep apnea, and was taking medication for high cholesterol.

The maximum penalty was 20 years in prison and a fine, which in this case could be between $500,000 and $800,000. Preliminary sentencing guidelines called for 37 to 46 months in prison, three years of supervised release, and restitution.

Kimmel reluctantly agreed to terms of forfeiture. He would have to give up approximately $405,000 in addition to the fine. Still subject to forfeiture were the nine condo units, seven vehicles, and other property that had been seized. However, if he paid the $405,000 he would get to keep units 5617, 5618, and 5619, which included his current residence.

Kimmel said he did not know at the time that he was involved in money laundering, described in the plea agreement as accepting assets knowing they come from illegal activity. “I accepted money thinking it was from legitimate sources.”

Only after it was explained to him, following his arrest in November 2005, did he realize what had happened. Said Kimmel, “I regret what I’ve done.”

According to Lopez, Kimmel was involved not for profit but to enhance his credit rating, acting as a lien holder for alleged pimps Young and White.

“He did not realize his conduct was illegal,” said the attorney, “since the pimps used their money at grocery stores, department stores and other businesses. Once he was in, he could not get out due to his apprehension in getting the cars back so he could sell them and payoff the notes and move on.”

Lopez said Kimmel was on the hook for more than $250,000 in car loans. He said Kimmel did not promote the prostitution business and “contrary to rumors he did not receive the services of any escort.”

Kimmel’s deal with prosecutors turned sour when he filed claims for vehicles that had been seized, against their wishes but on the advice of his accountant and a civil lawyer. Said Lopez, “His accountant and lawyer got [Kimmel] indicted based on their negligent advice.”

Lopez said Kimmel should have consulted a federal criminal defense lawyer, but instead relied on the advice of federal agents. “I feel really bad for Doc. He got shafted by the system by not having any adequate representation by an attorney or accountant. It is what it is and he did what he did. Now the judge will do what she may.”