Le Thu
Introduction
Le Thu, a 71-year-old physician from Boston, Massachusetts, was sentenced to 36 months in federal prison for her role in two separate telemedicine health care fraud schemes — one built on illegal kickbacks and one built on false doctors’ orders — that together generated more than $40 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare and TRICARE, the health care program run by the U.S. Department of Defense . She pleaded guilty in two stages in 2025 and was sentenced on October 6, 2026, in federal court in Newark, where the judge also ordered her to pay more than $27 million in restitution .
Background Information
Thu practiced medicine in the Boston area, and her licensing is what made the schemes possible: the fraud depended on a real physician’s signature being placed on medical orders that were never backed by actual patient care . The cases against her were prosecuted in the District of New Jersey, before U.S. District Judge Susan D. Wigenton, reflecting the venue in which the charges were brought rather than the location of her practice.
She first pleaded guilty in May 2025 to one count of an indictment charging conspiracy to violate the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, and then in June 2025 to a two-count information charging false statements related to health care matters . The investigation spanned multiple federal agencies, including the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the FBI, the Department of Labor’s Employee Benefits Security Administration, and the Tennessee Valley Authority’s inspector general, alongside the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts .
The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation
Convicted and sentenced. Thu admitted the conduct in two 2025 guilty pleas and received a 36-month prison sentence with more than $27 million in restitution in October 2026.
According to documents filed in the case and statements made in court, Thu’s first scheme ran from May 2014 through April 2017, when she received kickbacks from a telemedicine company in exchange for approving hundreds of prescriptions for durable medical equipment and compounded medications . The arrangement paid her approximately $35 for each prescription she approved, and she knew that some of those prescriptions would be used to bill TRICARE, which paid pharmacies hundreds of thousands of dollars for compounded medications procured through the kickbacks she accepted .
The second scheme ran from March 2017 through November 2020 and concerned payments for genetic tests and durable medical equipment for Medicare beneficiaries. Acting on behalf of multiple telemedicine companies, Thu signed — and caused others who had no medical training to sign — false medical documentation and orders for those tests and equipment . The documentation made it appear that she had exercised her own medical judgment and, in some instances, that she would use the genetic test results to treat the beneficiaries. In fact, she had not interacted with or provided any medical care to the beneficiaries before signing, or having others sign, the orders .
Thu signed thousands of such orders containing statements she knew were false and material to Medicare, in exchange for payments to her totaling more than $200,000 . As a result of those orders, durable medical equipment suppliers and laboratories submitted more than $40 million in claims to Medicare, on which Medicare paid more than $27 million .
Public Reaction and Consequences
The case was announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey and folded into the Department of Justice’s broader fraud-enforcement push: the release notes the April creation of the department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division, which it describes as investigating and prosecuting fraud against the American people as part of a whole-of-government task force effort chaired by the Vice President . The prosecution was handled by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kathleen P. O’Leary of the Health Care Fraud and Opioids Enforcement Unit .
The concrete consequences for Thu are a 36-month prison term, two years of supervised release, and a restitution obligation exceeding $27 million — the amount Medicare actually paid out on the fraudulent claims her orders generated .
Current Status
Thu was sentenced on October 6, 2026, on all counts, and the sentence of 36 months’ imprisonment with two years’ supervised release was imposed alongside the restitution order . Her guilty pleas in May and June 2025 resolved the indictment and the information against her, and no further proceedings in the case were announced in the release.
Impact on Their Career/Life
At 71, Thu goes to federal prison for three years, and the restitution judgment of over $27 million follows her beyond it . A federal fraud conviction and an Anti-Kickback Statute conspiracy admission are the kind of findings that end a medical career: the conduct the court accepted found that she lent her signature to orders she knew were false, for patients she had never seen, in exchange for per-prescription payments. The release does not state whether her medical license has been acted on, and no further professional consequences are asserted here beyond the criminal case itself.
Sources
- U.S. Attorney’s Office, District of New Jersey — “Massachusetts Doctor Sentenced to 36 Months in Prison for Participation in Multimillion-Dollar Medicare Fraud Scheme and for Violating the Federal Anti-Kickback Statute” source