Boston, Massachusetts, USA: Indian-origin former SpineFrontier Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Aditya Humad has been sentenced to four months in federal prison in the United States for his role in a scheme involving payments to surgeons to encourage them to use the company's spinal devices.
Humad, 41, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, was sentenced on August 6, 2026, by U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani. He had previously pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the federal Anti-Kickback Statute.
According to federal prosecutors, Humad and SpineFrontier founder and CEO Kingsley R. Chin arranged payments to surgeons through purported consulting agreements. The payments were allegedly used to encourage surgeons to select SpineFrontier products for spinal surgeries.
Prosecutors said Humad paid and conspired to pay more than $540,000 in bribes disguised as consulting fees for work that surgeons did not actually perform. The contracts offered payments ranging from $250 to $1,000 per hour.
The scheme allegedly resulted in SpineFrontier receiving millions of dollars in revenue from surgeries performed by the surgeons. Some of those procedures were billed to federal healthcare programs, including Medicare, Medicaid and the Veterans Health Administration.
Humad was originally charged in 2021 along with Chin and SpineFrontier in connection with the alleged kickback scheme. The case involved conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute, violations of the statute and a money-laundering conspiracy.
Humad later pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charge in May 2026. He had also previously agreed to a related civil settlement requiring him to pay more than $150,000, including interest, with potential additional payments depending on his annual income.
The case also involved other individuals connected to the broader investigation. SpineFrontier founder Kingsley Chin pleaded guilty in 2025 to making false statements to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and was separately sentenced to supervised release. His separate case included a $9,500 fine.
The federal investigation has focused on whether payments presented as legitimate consulting fees were actually used as kickbacks to influence surgeons' choice of medical devices. The Anti-Kickback Statute prohibits knowing and willful payments intended to induce or reward business involving federally funded healthcare programs.
