On February 22, 2023, President Biden nominated Jabari Wamble to the United States District Court for the District of Kansas to the seat vacated by Judge Julie Robinson. Mr. Wamble is a lifelong public servant with deep ties to Kansas and extensive litigation experience.
Biography
Jabari Wamble was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1979. As a child, he knew he wanted to attend law school and serve the public. His dreams came to fruition in 2006 when he earned his J.D. from the University of Kansas School of Law after graduating from the University of Kansas, where he was a student athlete and captain of the track team.
Legal Experience
After graduating from law school, Mr. Wamble has had a successful career as a state and federal prosecutor. He began his legal career in the Johnson County District Attorney’s Office as an Assistant District Attorney. In that office he prosecuted cases ranging from assault to identity fraud. He also served as the Office’s Domestic Violence Unit charging attorney. In 2007, he moved to the Office of the Kansas Attorney General. There, as Assistant Attorney General, he primarily handled complex Medicaid fraud and elder abuse cases.
For the last decade, he has served as an Assistant United States Attorney in the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Kansas. In that role, Mr. Wamble represents the United States in District Court for the District of Kansas and in the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals. He has prosecuted a wide range of cases, including corporate fraud, violent crime, health-care fraud, and immigration offenses. Additionally, as the District of Kansas Environmental Crimes Coordinator, he is the point of contact for local, state, and federal authorities regarding environmental crime prosecutions. Throughout his career, Mr. Wamble has tried over 50 federal and state trials to verdict and served as chief counsel in most of those cases.
Healthcare Fraud
One of Mr. Wamble’s most notable cases was United States v. Schneider, No. 6:07-CR-10234 (D. Kan.) (Belot, J.), for which he was later awarded the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association’s Investigation of the Year. The defendants in this case, a doctor and his wife, owned and operated a medical clinic that provided pain management treatment, including the distribution of controlled substances. Between 2002 and 2008, sixty-eight patients of the clinic died of drug overdoses and over one hundred more were admitted to the hospital for overdoses. Mr. Wamble’s team revealed that the defendants distributed controlled substances without a legitimate medical purpose, including leaving pre-signed prescription pads in the office, and were engaging in illegal financial transactions, including billing over $4 million to Medicaid while unlawfully operating. The trial lasted eight weeks and resulted in the jury finding both defendants guilty of numerous crimes, including conspiracy to commit health-care fraud, health-care fraud resulting in death, money laundering, and unlawful distribution of controlled substances resulting in death of the patient. Both were sentenced to at least 30 years in prison.
Mr. Wamble also investigated and prosecuted another health-care fraud case, United States v. Alabraba, No. 2: 1 0-CR-20049 (D. Kan.) (Murguia, J.), involving several medical device companies operating in Kansas. While these companies claimed to provide Medicare recipients with medical goods, they really either provided poor quality equipment or failed to provide any equipment. However, the companies’ owner, the defendant, still billed Medicare for the medical equipment, as well as for equipment that was not requested or prescribed. Ultimately, the defendant was found guilty of conspiracy to commit healthcare fraud, healthcare fraud, and aggravated identity theft. In a similar case, State v. Mundy, No. 09-CR-212 (Lyon Cty. D. Ct.) (Fowler, J.), Mr. Wamble served as lead counsel in an investigation into Cognitive Care Connection, which had been enrolled in Medicaid to provide traumatic brain injury services. The defendant, the owner and operator of the business, billed for services that were not provided and submitted duplicate claims. She was charged with criminal fraud against the Kansas Medicaid Program, among other crimes, and was found guilty on all counts.
Tax Fraud
Mr. Wamble served as lead counsel for the United States in United States v. Stegman, No. 2:14-CR-20109, 2016 WL 5109489 (D. Kan. Sept. 19, 2016) (Vratil, J.) in which the defendant was charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States government as well as personal and corporate tax evasion. The defendant, who owned and operated an aesthetics business and was underreporting her income while overstating her business expenses, was found guilty on nearly all counts. In United States v. Almaraz, No.16-200920-1-JAR (Robinson, J.), Mr. Wamble also served as lead counsel and handled the investigation into whether the defendant, who owned a tax preparation and accounting business, had assisted in preparing false income tax returns. The defendant there pled guilty. In United States v. Odegbaro, No.: 16-20001,02,03,04- JAR-JPO (Robinson, J.), Mr. Wamble, as sole counsel, investigated and prosecuted the defendant and co-defendants for conspiracy to defraud the government by filing fraudulent tax returns, stealing the identity of others, and submitting false employer and wage information. The defendants were charged with aggravated identify theft among other crimes. Ultimately, the defendants pled guilty.
Corporate Fraud
Mr. Wamble investigated the controller of the company Performance Contracting Group, Inc., who issued fraudulent checks payable to himself and to the businesses he controlled. The checks amounted to over $135,000. The defendant pled guilty, and Mr. Wamble was commended for his work on the case. He also prosecuted a former credit union employee who embezzled from the credit union. The defendant there, who made unauthorized debits from client accounts, pled guilty to wire fraud.
Immigration
Mr. Wamble also prosecuted a case where the owners and operators of a framing company were charged with harboring undocumented workers for commercial and private financial gain. The defendants did not pay Social Security costs, workers compensation, or unemployment benefits to their undocumented workers, which are legal requirements for construction workers. The owners of the company pled guilty and were sentenced to over a year in prison.
In United States v. Garcia-Delira, No. 2:10-CR-20127 (D. Kan.) (Robinson, J.), the defendant, who had been deported from the United States in 1997 after being convicted for molestation of a minor, was charged with illegally being present in the United States. Mr. Wamble served as sole counsel for the United States in this case, which was resolved when the defendant pled guilty.
Professional Activities and Accolades
Previously, Mr. Wamble was appointed to the Kansas Governor’s Task Force on Racial Profiling from 2007 to 2011. He also served on the boards of Saint Paul School of Theology and The University of Kansas School of Law and was a member of the United States Magistrate Judge Selection Committee (Topeka) in 2019 and United States Magistrate Judge Selection Committee (Wichita) in 2015.
Since 2012, as Director of the Federal Practice Clinic at the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Kansas, Mr. Wamble has selected law students to participate in the clinic, managed the students’ case assignments, and provided career advice and guidance. Additionally, he is currently a member of The University of Kansas School of Law’s Diversity Advisory Council.