Former NFL Player and Laboratory Owner Convicted in $328M Genetic Testing Fraud Scheme

US Department of Justice, February 20, 2026

A federal jury in Dallas convicted a Texas laboratory owner and former NFL player yesterday for his role in a $328 million cardiovascular genetic testing fraud scheme.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Keith J. Gray, 39, of McKinney, Texas, orchestrated a scheme to bill Medicare for medically unnecessary genetic tests designed to evaluate the risk of various cardiovascular diseases and conditions. Gray, the owner and operator of two clinical laboratories, Axis Professional Labs LLC (Axis), and Kingdom Health Laboratory LLC (Kingdom), 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 tests. As part of the scheme, the marketers engaged other companies to solicit Medicare beneficiaries through telemarketing and to engage in “doctor chase,” i.e., to obtain the identity of beneficiaries’ primary care physicians and pressure them into approving genetic testing orders for patients who purportedly had already been “qualified” for the testing during telephone calls conducted by non-medical personnel at one of the companies retained by the marketers — not by their physicians.

In an effort to conceal the kickback payments, Gray used sham contracts and invoices that purported to charge for “marketing” hours but that in reality were reverse-engineered to match the amounts agreed to under the illegal per-sample kickback arrangement. Gray also sought to conceal the scheme by, among other things, referring to the payments as being for “software” and loans that never existed. Evidence at trial included text messages between Gray and his co-conspirator becoming giddy over the amount of money they were making from Medicare. For example, Gray’s co-conspirator stated, “$ent, you should have it any minute if you don’t already. Get it?” Gray responded, “Sorry I was filling my bathtub with ones. Yes lol.”

Read more.