A man from Tennessee is now facing over 90 federal charges after allegedly submitting numerous fraudulent claims in class action lawsuits, using the identities of deceased or retired baseball players.
On August 12, 69-year-old George Herman Ruth from Morristown was indicted on 91 counts, including charges of mail fraud, aggravated identity theft, misuse of Social Security numbers, and money laundering. This indictment was revealed on Thursday.
Although he is charged with misusing names of former baseball players, George Herman Ruth is the legal name on official documents. It is uncertain whether he intentionally changed it to resemble the famed baseball legend George Herman “Babe” Ruth.
The legal documents suggest that between January 2023 and July 2025, Ruth executed a complex scheme across the country. He allegedly submitted fraudulent forms to class action trustees nationwide, where the Justice Department claims he used names of deceased or retired baseball professionals, along with Social Security numbers from uninformed individuals.
The scheme supposedly involved Ruth setting up post office boxes throughout Tennessee and fabricating a business named El Mundo Marketing LLC to create a channel for laundering the illicit funds. The Justice Department accuses Ruth of attempting to acquire over $550,000 through this fraudulent operation.
Back in 2020, Ruth received a sentencing of 56 months in a federal prison after he admitted guilt to charges related to a conspiracy against the Social Security Administration and the IRS. He had served time from around 1984 to 2014, with short breaks from incarceration. At the time of the recent charges in Tennessee, he was under supervised release.
If convicted, he could face up to 20 years plus a mandatory, consecutive two-year sentence, a term of supervised release up to three years, and a fine up to $250,000.
