January 27, 2011 – The long, strange trip of Gary Kimmel has apparently resumed where it left off exactly five years ago, with the former dentist and convicted money launderer believed to be residing in an east tower condo unit at Marina City that he used to own.

Kimmel had been living at a “half-way house” west of the Loop since being released on December 5, 2010 from the United States Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas. Indicted on January 18, 2006, Kimmel started his prison sentence on March 2, 2009. Completing a drug and alcohol counseling program helped shorten his original 37-month sentence.

(Left) Where Kimmel was living late last year, the Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Center at 506 North Des Plaines Street on Chicago’s Near West Side (Google street view).

Speculation that Kimmel had moved back was so convincing that the condo board asked its attorney for a written legal opinion about whether Kimmel could be prevented from residing at Marina City.

Daniel Meyer, of O’Hagan Spencer LLC, told the board in a letter dated December 13 it does not possess means to prevent Kimmel from occupying any unit at Marina City, other than three combined units the condo association was awarded possession of in 2009. Marina Towers Condominium Association had sued Kimmel for $5,848, representing unpaid assessments and related charges.

Currently, it is believed that Kimmel still owns those three units but, according to Meyer, two of the units are the subjects of mortgage foreclosure proceedings. Kimmel’s current two-bedroom residence is next door to the three combined one-bedroom units.

Kimmel’s conviction on money laundering charges, wrote Meyer (left), “is not, in our opinion, sufficient to render his presence on the common elements noxious, offensive or disturbing.” A copy of the letter was sent anonymously to Marina City Online this week.

Kimmel and his wife, Monalisa, sold the two-bedroom unit in 2005 to William Balcerzak, who is currently on the condo board at Marina Towers. Kimmel had owned the unit for 18 months and sold it for $357,000, according to public records, a profit of $77,000. (Right) Monalisa and Gary Kimmel in an undated photo.

In November 2009, Kimmel’s attorney, Joseph Lopez, told Marina City Online that Kimmel wants to resume his career as a dentist. He must first pay a $50,000 fine to the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation to get his dentist license back. The license was suspended on September 30, 2006.

 Related story: Kimmel back in Chicago