Texas counselor convicted in $26M fraud, kickback scheme

A federal jury in Fort Worth convicted a Texas-licensed professional counselor of orchestrating a $26 million scheme involving fraud, kickbacks and money laundering tied to the military’s TRICARE health insurance program, the Justice Department announced.

Kevin D. Curry, 64, of Frisco, was found guilty of three counts of health care fraud, three counts of offering and paying illegal health care kickbacks, and three counts of engaging in monetary transactions in criminally derived property. He faces a maximum of 10 years in prison on each count. The department did not announce a sentencing date. A federal judge will determine his sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Curry owned and operated two purported mental health clinics in Texas, Acuity TMS of Plano and Acuity TMS of Fort Worth, and one in Florida, Emerald Coast TMS of Fort Walton Beach. The operation billed TRICARE for transcranial magnetic stimulation therapy that was medically unnecessary or never provided, prosecutors said.

Curry paid more than $5.5 million in kickbacks to persuade active-duty servicemembers, veterans and their relatives to consent to treatment for which they did not qualify and, in many cases, did not receive, according to the department. Curry falsely presented himself as a medical doctor and used physicians’ credentials without their knowledge or consent to submit claims. To conceal the scheme, he directed employees to fabricate medical records that were submitted to TRICARE, prosecutors said.

The clinics billed TRICARE more than $26 million in false, fraudulent and kickback-tainted claims, and the program paid approximately $17 million, according to the department. Curry laundered some of the proceeds by spending them on hotels, a casino-themed party and a gold-plated Tesla Cybertruck worth more than $100,000.

Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division said Curry exploited a health care program serving active-duty servicemembers and their families. The department “will continue to aggressively pursue anyone who abuses federal programs for personal gain,” he said.

U.S. Attorney Ryan Raybould of the Northern District of Texas said Curry “shamelessly preyed on the trust of servicemembers, veterans, and their families.”

The Defense Criminal Investigative Service, the FBI, the Texas Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit and the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General investigated. Assistant U.S. Attorney Ethan Womble and Justice Department trial attorneys Adam Tisdall and Yael Mash are prosecuting the case.