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Nov 20, 2008 6:39 pm US/Central
Dentist Gets 3 Years For Role In Prostitution Ring
Dr. Gary Kimmel Admitted In May To Money Laundering
CHICAGO (CBS) ―
A Chicago dentist was sentenced Thursday to 37 months in prison after pleading guilty to a role in a prostitution ring that operated in Chicago, Detroit and Honolulu.
Gary Kimmel, 59, is no longer a dentist. He has lost his license to practice and is now driving a truck. He's also being forced to sell his swanky, three-bedroom Marina City condominium complete with Jacuzzi and steam room.
CBS 2's Mike Parker reports Kimmel will report to federal prison in January to begin serving his prison term of three years and one month.
Kimmel pled guilty to money laundering, buying a fleet of luxury cars for a ring of pimps and prostitutes, and housing prostitutes in several other condos he owned at the Marina City complex.
Kimmel said that from March 2002 through November 2005 he accepted at least $342,000 in cash, checks and money orders for financing, insuring and maintaining the cars.
The revelations have stunned his neighbors.
"That absolutely shocks me," Marina City resident Diana Fos said. "I mean this is a building where there's a lot of conservative people. You'd never expect anything like that to be going on."
Kimmel also admitted doing dental work for the prostitutes at his Streeterville clinic, including replacing the teeth of one woman who'd been badly beaten by her procurer.
The 37-month sentence came after his attorneys pleaded for mercy.
"You heard me read to e-mail into the record who knew the doc. He said for all his faults, he's not an evil man. Was he naive? Absolutely. Was he dumb to do it? Absolutely. But he's not an evil individual," defense attorney Joe Lopez said.
In the end Kimmel was luckier with his sentence that one of his former pimp cohorts, Robert Lewis Young, known as "Diamond" on the streets.
Young was recently convicted of running extensive prostitution rings in Detroit, and of child pornography. His was sentenced to 25 years behind bars.
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