Chicago dentist gets 3 years for laundering money

A downtown dentist who pleaded guilty to laundering thousands of dollars for an interstate prostitution ring operating in Illinois, Michigan, Hawaii and elsewhere was sentenced Thursday to three years and a month in federal prison.

Dr. Gary Kimmel, 59, admitted using prostitution money to buy cars including a Corvette, a Land Rover and a Mercedes Benz in his own name that members of the ring used to visit customers.

But Kimmel told U.S. District Judge Blanche M. Manning he is broke.

"I am destitute, I have nothing," Kimmel said. He said he had no idea how he would support his three children.

"I don't know what I'm going to do," he said. "But I won't give up."

"A person as highly educated as you should have had more common sense," Manning told him. But she sentenced Kimmel to the minimum 37 months, noting that he served in the military and received a number of decorations, including the Purple Heart.

Kimmel also must forfeit $342,000 or more, depending on what Manning decides.

The investigation began as a federal Project Innocence Lost, focusing on a group that lured dozens of underage girls and young women into prostitution and hauled them from state to state. The alleged mastermind of the organization, Robert Lewis "Diamond" Young, was sentenced in a federal court in Michigan to 25 years in prison.

Kimmel became part of the ring in 2001 when he rented an apartment he owned in Marina City, a high-rise on the Chicago River, to another key organizer of the ring who has since been jailed, prosecutors said.

Before long, prostitutes stayed in apartments owned by Kimmel and he provided them with dental services, according to the government.

Using prostitution money, he bought luxury cars that were used to take the prostitutes to meet with their customers. The cars were put in his name as a way of laundering the payments the women had received.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Julie B. Ruder prosecuted the case.