Date: November 17, 2023 Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov Phoenix, AZ — Thvoughn Lynden Curry and his wife, Alexis Daneen Curry of New River, Arizona, were arrested on November 2, 2023, pursuant to a federal indictment charging wire fraud and money laundering. Alexis made her initial appearance in Riverside, California, on November 7, 2023, and Thvoughn made his initial appearance in Riverside, California, on November 14, 2023. The Currys were arrested by officers from the Riverside County Sherriff's Office as they left the Pechanga Resort & Casino, in Temecula, California. The indictment alleges that the Currys devised a scheme to defraud the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS), Arizona's Medicaid agency that offers health care programs to low-income Arizona residents, by submitting fraudulent claims for payment to AHCCCS. Between approximately February 1, 2021, continuing through March 31, 2023, the Currys submitted over $12,000,000 in claims for the purported treatment of approximately 185 patients through their outpatient behavioral health clinic located in Mesa. The Currys are charged with Wire Fraud and Money Laundering. A conviction for Wire Fraud carries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. A conviction for Money Laundering carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000. An indictment is simply a method by which a person is charged with criminal activity and raises no inference of guilt. An individual is presumed innocent until evidence is presented to a jury that establishes guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This is a joint investigation run by IRS Criminal Investigation (CI) and the Mesa Police Department, with assistance from AHCCCS. Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristen Brook, District of Arizona, Phoenix, is handling the prosecution. CI is the criminal investigative arm of the IRS, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a more than a 90 percent federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 12 attaché posts abroad.
