Texas Clinic Owner Convicted of Defrauding Military Healthcare of $26 Million
Texas licensed counselor Kevin D. Curry was found guilty by a federal jury in Fort Worth. Prosecutors stated he falsely billed the military healthcare TRICARE for transcranial magnetic stimulation treatments through three clinics, claiming over $26 million, while only about $17 million was actually paid out.
Curry, 64, operated Acuity TMS of Plano, Acuity TMS of Fort Worth, and Emerald Coast TMS of Fort Walton Beach in Florida. The charges spanned from September 2022 to the end of 2025. He is not a physician but presented himself as one to patients and used real doctors' credentials without their knowledge, instructing staff to forge treatment records.
To create billable treatment consent, he paid over $5.5 million in kickbacks to active-duty military personnel, veterans, and their families. Some recipients did not meet the criteria for TMS, and some never received treatment. TMS is used for severe depression and stimulates nerve cells using magnetic fields. The jury found him guilty of three counts of healthcare fraud, three counts of illegal kickbacks, and three counts of money laundering. Each count carries a maximum sentence of ten years, with sentencing dates yet to be determined.
The illicit funds were used for luxury hotels, expensive furniture, casino-themed parties for employees and beneficiaries, and a gold-plated Tesla Cybertruck. The Department of Justice stated the vehicle costs over $100,000; FBI seizure documents valued the 2024 model at approximately $73,230. The vehicle was seized on January 21, 2026, with about $200,000 in recovered assets, including approximately $136,000 in cash. The Department of Justice released a photo of the vehicle.
The buying side was driven by kickbacks and beneficiaries whose bills were paid by federal programs; the selling side involved packaging high-priced neurostimulation projects into the TRICARE clinic network. Funds flowed from the Department of Defense healthcare to clinic accounts, then into hotels, parties, and vehicles. The event was driven by federal prosecution and guilty verdicts, not market transactions. Beneficiaries include prosecutors who have seized some assets; the burden falls on military families' healthcare that was exploited and the doctors whose names were misused.
Source: Public Information
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Curry did not invent new therapies but embedded existing, high-reimbursement TMS into military family channels. Clinics were established in military-populated North Texas and Florida's Walton Beach, first addressing "who qualifies for payment by the plan," then using kickbacks to resolve "who is willing to sign the bills." Misusing doctor credentials and falsifying medical records was to ensure the reimbursement system would still pay out without real physician oversight.
The capital path is short: TRICARE pays per project, clinics treat kickbacks as customer acquisition costs, with the remainder going to personal consumption. $5.5 million bought traffic, $17 million returned, with the difference becoming a lifestyle. This parallels the North American federal healthcare arbitrage chain where difficult-to-verify projects are easily turned into assembly lines.
Similar precedents include opioid prescription mills, genetic testing kickbacks, and compound pharmacy scams—all exploiting federal or employer plans as deep pockets, treating patients as billing vehicles. The industry remains in an expansion phase of payment loopholes rather than breakthroughs in treatment technology. The gold-plated pickup became a prosecutor's exhibit because luxury items are more visible to juries than medical records.
This reflects a misalignment of pricing power before regulatory changes. Treatment prices are determined by reimbursement schedules, not efficacy; whoever can control both customer acquisition and coding can bill for a magnetic stimulation session far exceeding costs. The mechanism is that military healthcare must cover mental health, with verification lagging behind multiple clinics and interstate billing, while kickbacks rewrite patients from being sick to becoming channels. The guilty verdict recovers symbolic items, not the majority of payments already spent.