CFO of Boston-Area Spinal Device Company Pleads Guilty to Kickback Scheme

BOSTON - The Chief Financial Officer of SpineFrontier, Inc., a spinal implant company, formerly based in Malden, Mass., pleaded guilty yesterday in connection with a kickback scheme to bribe surgeons to use company products in exchange for sham consulting fees.

Aditya Humad, 41, of Cambridge, Mass., pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute. U.S. District Court Judge Indira Talwani scheduled sentencing for Aug. 6, 2026. Humad was charged in September 2021 along with the company SpineFrontier, as well as Dr. Kingsley R. Chin, SpineFrontier's Founder, President and CEO.

Humad paid and conspired to pay over $540,000 in bribes to surgeons in the form of sham consulting fees for work they did not perform. Humad and Chin bribed surgeons to use SpineFrontier's products, and in turn, SpineFrontier received millions of dollars in revenue from surgeries the surgeons performed.

Humad entered into contracts with surgeons, agreeing to pay the surgeons between $250 and $1,000 per hour for purported consulting for SpineFrontier. In reality, however, Humad and Chin paid the surgeons for using SpineFrontier's products. Although the surgeon-consulting program was purportedly directed at gathering technical feedback about SpineFrontier's products, Humad used the bribes they paid pursuant to that program, to induce surgeons to use SpineFrontier's products in surgeries that were paid for by federal health care programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Veterans Health Administration. Additionally, the surgeons frequently spent only a small fraction of their reported time, if any, performing actual consulting.

Humad previously agreed to pay a fine pursuant to a civil settlement agreement, including a fixed amount totaling more than $150,000 (including interest) and agreed to potential additional contingency payments based upon Humad's annual income.

In May 2025, Chin pleaded guilty to making false statements to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. He was subsequently sentenced in August 2025 by Judge Talwani to one year of supervised release with the first six months to be served in home confinement. Chin was also ordered to pay a fine of $9,500 in addition to $40,000 he personally agreed to pay as part of a related civil settlement and $855,000 his wholly-owned company agreed to pay as part of the same settlement.

This plea also follows two guilty pleas in related criminal prosecutions. In August 2020, surgeon Jason Montone, D.O, 50, of Lawson, Miss., pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute and obstruction. Medical device distributor John Balzer, 48, of Lenexa, Kan., pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute and one count of witness tampering. Montone and Balzer are scheduled to be sentenced in September 2026.

The charge of conspiring to violate the Anti-Kickback Statute provides for a sentence of up to five years in prison, three years of supervised release, a fine of $250,000 or twice the gross gain or gross loss resulting from the offense, whichever is greater, forfeiture and restitution. Sentences are imposed by a federal district court judge based upon the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

United States Attorney Leah B. Foley; Roberto Coviello, Special Agent in Charge of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services' Office of the Inspector General; Ted E. Docks, Special Agent in Charge of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Boston Division; Special Agent in Charge Christopher Algieri, Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General, Northeast Field Office; and Jason Buckley, Acting Inspector in Charge of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service's Boston Division made the announcement today. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Abraham R. George, Christopher R. Looney and Mackenzie A. Queenin are prosecuting the case.