A gold Cybertruck is not an obvious choice for someone hoping his spending goes unnoticed.
Federal prosecutors say Kevin D. Curry, a 64-year-old licensed professional counselor from Frisco, Texas, bought one with proceeds from a scheme that billed TRICARE for mental-health treatments that were medically unnecessary or never provided. A federal jury in Fort Worth convicted Curry on nine counts Thursday, the Justice Department said.
The spending was similarly ostentatious elsewhere, with prosecutors tracing proceeds to hotels and a casino-themed party.
DOJ describes the Tesla as a gold-plated Cybertruck worth more than $100,000, while FBI forfeiture paperwork valued it at $73,230.
Acquired Taste
Embedded media follows; please allow a moment for it to load.
1/8 Trial Conviction in Texas
A Texas mental‑health clinic owner was convicted at trial for a $26 million scheme to defraud TRICARE by billing for medically unnecessary treatments and paying MILLIONS in kickbacks to recruiters.
He spent stolen taxpayer dollars on things like… pic.twitter.com/awksQhIwvY
— Colin M. McDonald (@AAGMcDonald) September 26, 2026
Federal agents seized the 2024 Cybertruck on Jan. 21, 2026, months before prosecutors publicly announced the criminal charges.
When the case became public in June, DOJ said in its initial charging announcement that agents had seized approximately $200,000 in assets, including $136,022 in cash and the Tesla.
Purchase price, modification cost, and the value assigned to seized property can all produce different numbers, something familiar to anyone who has spent enthusiastically modifying a vehicle and later discovered that the next buyer is under no obligation to share that enthusiasm.
Gold does not repeal depreciation.
DOJ repeatedly calls Curry’s Cybertruck “gold-plated,” although its remarkably smooth, glossy, and uniform mirror-gold finish looks much more like a gold-chrome wrap.
Several readers responding to the Justice Department’s Facebook post questioned the description as well, calling the finish a wrap or simply gold-colored.
Midas Touch
In 2024, YouTuber Zack Nelson of JerryRigEverything worked with Ridge on a Cybertruck plated in genuine 24-karat gold.
InsideEVs documented the stainless-steel body being chemically prepared before gold was electrochemically deposited onto it. The final plating was described as 99.7% gold hardened with a small amount of cobalt, with protective film later applied over the finished surface.
A subsequent Cars & Bids listing said nearly $60,000 worth of gold had been applied.
Compared with Curry’s much more mirror-like Tesla, the Ridge build has a softer, more natural gold tone and visible variation across its plated stainless-steel panels.
Ridge later made it the centerpiece of a 2024 sweepstakes in which the winner could choose the gold-plated Tesla, a Hennessey VelociRaptor valued at about $140,000 or $100,000 in cash.
The winner took the cash.
JerryRigEverything then sent the Cybertruck to Cars & Bids for a no-reserve charity auction in December 2024. By then, the early Foundation Series truck had accumulated about 6,900 miles, while full-body paint protection film covered the plated panels.
The auction drew more than 152,000 views and 22 bids before the truck sold for $102,000.
Even 24-karat gold could not persuade the market that a customized Cybertruck was worth the sum of everything spent making it one of one.
Medical Bills
Curry owned Acuity TMS of Plano LLC and Acuity TMS of Fort Worth LLC in Texas, along with Emerald Coast TMS of Fort Walton Beach LLC in Florida. The clinics provided transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS, a noninvasive treatment that uses magnetic pulses to stimulate areas of the brain.
According to evidence described by DOJ after the verdict, Curry offered and paid more than $5.5 million in kickbacks to persuade active-duty service members, veterans, and family members to consent to TMS therapy they did not qualify for and, in many instances, never received.
Prosecutors also presented evidence that Curry falsely held himself out as a medical doctor and used actual physicians’ credentials without their knowledge or consent when billing TRICARE, while employees acting at his direction fabricated medical records submitted to support the claims.
Acuity submitted more than $26 million in false, fraudulent, and kickback-tainted claims, with TRICARE paying approximately $17 million.
The FBI has seized only a small portion of that roughly $17 million, including $136,022 in cash and Curry’s Cybertruck. DOJ valued the assets seized by the time charges were announced at approximately $200,000, with restitution and forfeiture proceedings still determining what else can be recovered.
Readers on DOJ’s Facebook post also asked whether Curry was being held after the verdict. DOJ’s post-trial announcement says he will be sentenced later but does not specify his current custody status.
Assistant Attorney General Colin McDonald wrote on X that Curry spent “stolen taxpayer dollars” on personal luxuries, using the golden Cybertruck as the opening image in an eight-post thread about the conviction.
There are quieter ways to spend the proceeds of a multimillion-dollar federal fraud scheme than buying one of the most conspicuous vehicles on the road and making it shinier.
Curry did not choose one of them.
In Flagrante Delicto
The jury convicted Curry 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.
Each count carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, with Curry’s eventual sentence to be determined by a federal judge after considering the sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors.
The Defense Criminal Investigative Service, FBI, Texas Attorney General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit, and Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General investigated the case.