Keith Gray, a former NFL player who played for the Carolina Panthers in 2009, was convicted for his role in a $328 million Medicare fraud scheme, according to authorities.
The US Department of Justice, in a news release issued on Friday (February 20, 2026), said that a federal jury in Dallas convicted the 39-year-old former NFL player and University of Connecticut student athlete for orchestrating “a scheme to bill Medicare for medically unnecessary genetic tests designed to evaluate the risk of various cardiovascular diseases and conditions.”
Gray, of McKinney, Texas, who owns and operates two clinical laboratories, offered and “paid kickbacks to marketers in exchange for their referral of Medicare beneficiaries’ DNA samples, personally identifiable information (including Medicare numbers), and signed test orders from medical providers authorizing the medically unnecessary genetic…
Identity theft is the “foundational” fraud upon which many other crimes are built. It involves the unauthorized acquisition and use of a person’s personal identifying information (PII), such as an ID number, Social Security number, or passport details.
- How it works: Fraudsters obtain PII through data breaches, mail theft, or “social engineering” (tricking people into revealing details). Once they have this data, they can open new bank accounts, apply for credit cards or loans, and even receive medical treatment under your name.
- Synthetic Identity Fraud: A sophisticated variation where criminals combine real and fabricated information to create a completely new, “synthetic” person. This is particularly difficult to detect because there is no single victim to report the suspicious activity initially.