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The Judicial Execution of Dr. Sanjeev Kumar: How the DOJ Just Buried a Good Doctor for 20 Years

Judicial tyranny running rampant

Kirk Moore, MD's avatar
Kirk Moore, MD
Jul 15, 2026
Cross-posted by The Price of Ethics
"If you are a doctor and your staff cleans your medical equipment properly using a method approved by the CDC, they can sentence YOU (and nobody else) to jail for 20 years even though nobody was harmed. I am not joking. I wish I was. This happened to Dr. Kumar. NOT A SINGLE PATIENT WAS HARMED and he now has a 20 year prison sentence. This is the single most egregious miscarriage of justice in the US today. And nobody is talking about it. Not the NY Times, not CNN, not 60 Minutes, no mainstream media at all. Not even Tucker Carlson! 20 years in prison for doing nothing wrong!? "
- Steve Kirsch

July 14, 2026

I haven't written about this case publicly yet because frankly, I've been too disgusted to put words to it. But watching what the federal government just did to Dr. Sanjeev Kumar — a Memphis gynecologist now serving 20 years for the crime of... cleaning his medical devices the CDC-approved way — has pushed me past disgust into something closer to rage.

No, I'm not exaggerating. Twenty years. For a doctor who harmed zero patients. Let that sink in.

The Charges That Made the Headlines vs. The Charges That Stuck

When the FBI raided Dr. Kumar's Poplar Avenue clinic in April 2024, the press had a field day. Indictment in February 2025 was even more sensational. Sexual misconduct! Human trafficking! A doctor luring women across state lines for illegal sex acts! The indictment was a prosecutor's dream — 46 federal counts dripping with the kind of salacious detail that guarantees wall-to-wall coverage and destroys a man's reputation before he ever sees a courtroom.

Those charges? All dismissed. Every single one of them.

What remained was a regulatory dispute dressed up as a criminal case: the FDA alleged Kumar "adulterated" and "misbranded" single-use medical devices. The government's theory? He reused them on patients.

Now, you'd think proving reuse would require, I don't know, evidence of actual reuse. Silly me. Thinking like a doctor, not a federal prosecutor.

The Evidence the FBI Refused to Test

Here's where it gets good. The FBI's own forensic laboratory — the Evidence Management Unit and Trace Evidence Unit — refused to test the devices for DNA.

No, really. They issued a "Discontinuation Report." Translation: "We're not touching this."

Why? Because the devices were sitting in cleaning solution. The FBI's own forensic examiners said the presence of those solutions made DNA analysis impossible. The Laboratory Physical Operations Unit also refused, noting the equipment had been handled by Kumar and his staff.

Think about the logic here: the FBI wouldn't test the evidence because it wasn’t going to show contamination— too compromised to yield results — but the DOJ still used that same evidence to put a man in prison for two decades.

These devices remained with the FBI in filthy conditions for months, literally biting dust.

If that doesn't make your blood boil, check your pulse.

What the Trial Actually Showed

A microtrace expert and multiple witnesses testified there was zero evidence any single-use device was ever reused on a patient. Blood was tested three times and returned negative.

Some devices — like the Endosee hysteroscope — have a built-in kill switch that physically prevents a cannula from being reused. You literally cannot reuse it. The thing bricks itself.

Other devices seized by investigators were found in a cupboard without a battery. Inoperable. Not touching any patient.

Forceps and graspers cited by the FDA didn't even fit the scopes they were allegedly associated with.

Many items had been staged for disposal, not for use. Per CDC’s own guidelines to dispose of biomedical waste.

Dr. Kumar conducted a live in-court demonstration showing the devices were inoperable and couldn't be used on patients.

The devices that were in use? Sitting in CDC-approved high-level disinfectant solution — exactly what the CDC guidelines say you're supposed to do.

And the kicker: Zero patients contracted an infection. No disease outbreak. No injury. No harmed patient. Out of over 9,000 women treated. The clinic conducted over 40,000 visits without hysteroscopy. 3800 patients never had hysteroscopy but the DOJ conveniently excluded them to paint a picture that everyone had hysteroscopy!!

A Tennessee Department of Health panel investigated Kumar and found no wrongdoing. The FBI never wanted to interviewed her. Funny how that works — when a witness doesn't fit the narrative, you just... don't call them.

The Patients Who Testified — Both of Them

The prosecution paraded some former patients in front of the jury.

Patient 2: Said she never felt tricked or misled. Only stopped going to Kumar's clinic because she found one closer to home. That was the prosecution's witness.

Patient 9: Had multiple biopsies she found uncomfortable. Admitted on cross-examination she failed to take her prescribed medication. Felt the procedures were excessive. That's it. That's the sum total of patient "harm."

No patient testified to being injured by a reused device. No patient testified to contracting an infection. No patient testified to any physical injury whatsoever.

Thousands of patients benefitted from the services. Countless of cancers were diagnosed. 

One patient took the stand and said Dr. Kumar was nice and that his patients loved him. 

How They Got the Conviction Anyway

Enter Judge Sheryl Lipman — Barack Obama appointee, Western District of Tennessee.

If that name sounds familiar, it should. This is the same judge who was kicked off a case by the Sixth Circuit for outright defiance. The case: Dane Schrank, a man who downloaded nearly 1,000 images of babies and toddlers being violently, sadistically raped. Federal sentencing guidelines called for 97–120 months. Lipman gave him 12 months of home confinement.

The Sixth Circuit reversed her. She reimposed the exact same sentence and publicly mocked the appellate judges' "computer sophistication." The Sixth Circuit reversed her again and removed her from the case entirely. That's about as harsh a judicial rebuke as exists short of impeachment.

So the judge who bent over backwards to keep a child pornography offender out of prison is the same judge who presided over Kumar's trial. And what did she do?

She allowed jury instructions under which prosecutors did not have to prove actual reuse of a device on a patient. Criminal liability could attach if a device was merely present in a medical office — even if inoperable, never used, never touched a patient. Next time a medical student uses a device to learn in a clinic; be watchful. The physician can go to jail for that!!!

Let me say that again: under this legal theory, having a medical device in your clinic that the FDA says is "single-use" is a crime — even if you never used it, even if it literally cannot be reused, even if it was sitting in a disposal bin.

Every physician in America should be terrified.

The Agent Who Deleted His Phone

Lead FDA agent Brian Kriplean deleted the contents of his phone and failed to disclose key investigative materials until after witnesses had testified. That's a Brady violation. That's a Giglio violation. That's the kind of thing that gets cases thrown out — unless, apparently, the judge has somewhere else to be.

Post-verdict, the defense raised claims of juror misconduct — a juror may have had outside contact during deliberations. Sentencing was delayed, then proceeded anyway. Twenty years.

The FDA lead reviewer; Poulomi Nandy, lied under oath

Lead FDA device reviewer, Poulomi Nandy testified under oath that FDA has never cleared a hysteroscope that can be used with high level disinfection. Never ever!! Then she was shown the product IFU cleared by her own agency-FDA which said repeatedly-“use with either high level disinfection or sterlization.” Repeatedly. She lied under oath, mislead the jury and has since been fired from the FDA.

The Playbook

This case is a masterclass in how the system destroys someone:

  1. Charge them with the most salacious crimes imaginable — sex trafficking, sexual misconduct. Let the media run wild. Destroy the person's reputation before trial.

  2. Drop those charges when they don't hold up. By then, the public has already made up its mind. "Where there's smoke, there's fire," right?

  3. Pursue conviction on the regulatory charges using novel legal theories that criminalize normal medical practice.

  4. Suppress exculpatory evidence, delete phone data, ignore witnesses who don't fit the narrative.

  5. Stack the deck with jury instructions that don't require proof of actual harm.

And the result? A doctor who served over 9,000 mostly low-income, minority women — a doctor who harmed nobody — is doing 20 years in federal prison.

Why This Matters to Every Doctor

If the FDA can criminalize the mere presence of a single-use device in your office — even if it was never reused, even if it was in a disposal bin, even if it has a built-in mechanism preventing reuse — then no physician is safe.

The FDA doesn't have jurisdiction over the practice of medicine. That's supposed to be a state matter. But the feds have figured out a workaround: use the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act's adulteration and misbranding provisions — statutes designed for regulatory enforcement — as criminal weapons against individual doctors.

Stanley Plotkin and his ilk have spent decades building a medical establishment that serves industry, not patients. The Kumar case is what happens when that establishment decides to make an example of someone.

What You Can Do

Dr. Kumar is appealing. The Brady violations, the juror misconduct, the legally novel jury instructions — there's substantial ground for appellate scrutiny. But appeals take years, and he's already lost his practice, his reputation, and his freedom.

Share this. Talk about it. The same DOJ that prosecuted Kumar is the DOJ that told us the Trump shooter was a "lone gunman" within 48 hours. The same institutions that lied about the Wuhan lab leak. The same FDA that approved vaccines for newborns with five days of follow-up. The same agencies that have never conducted a single randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial for any childhood vaccine.

They don't care about us. They care about power, money, and control.

NOLI PARERES.

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