75-year-old touted holistic cancer cure. Then he duped patients out of $700K, feds say

A 75-year-old man in Nashville, Tennessee, held himself out as a doctor who received a prestigious grant to study cancer patients because he had cured himself of the disease, according to federal prosecutors.

Instead, prosecutors said he conned patients out of nearly $700,000.

Howard L. Young was charged Friday on accusations of bank fraud, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft involving a years-long Ponzi scheme at his Nashville medical center, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee said Monday in a news release. He faces up to 30 years in prison and a $1 million fine if convicted.

An attorney representing Young did not immediately respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News.

Young is the founder of a “holistic wellness business” called Integrative Medical Services, which touts its “healthcare from a holistic perspective that restores the mind, body, and soul.”

“Today, you go to the doctor with a need and a band aid in the form of a prescription or pill is prescribed. That need, that problem, and that issue still exists underneath that band-aid, but it may never be fully addressed; not until it’s too late,” the page’s description reads. “Integrative Medical Services addresses the root cause condition first and provides relative programs and solutions that are customized to your body’s needs. We don’t band-aid a solution for health, we dig deep for the problem to execute.”

Young is described in a post shortly after the center opened in 2015 as having a doctorate degree in Holistic Sciences and “30 years experience in free weights and universal equipment” as well as “26 years training in martial arts.”

In reality, prosecutors said he had neither a medical doctorate nor a medical license.

Beginning in early 2017, Young said he received a $2 million grant from Vanderbilt University to study cancer patients and people with chronic ailments, according to court filings.

“Young claimed he was awarded this grant because he had cured himself of cancer using naturopathic methods,” the release states. “Young also promised that, as part of the study, patients would receive nutritional supplements, blood testing, nutrition and exercise coaching, gym memberships, massages, and acupuncture.”

Patients were told they needed to pay $10,000 up front to participate, prosecutors said, and were also assured all of the money would be returned to them after one year.

“I’m committed to the well-being of those diagnosed with cancer, diabetes and other serious illnesses,” Young said in a video promoting the study on Facebook. “I’m also a two-time cancer survivor.”

Patients who couldn’t afford the fee were told to open what’s known as a CareCredit account or Health Credit Services account. The accounts function like credit cards or a line of credit for medical procedures and treatments, according to court filings. Patients who open the accounts are required to make monthly payments.

When Young solicited patients for the study, prosecutors said, he told them he would make the minimum payments and pay off the accounts at the end of the year “so long as participants continued to abide by the study ‘protocols’ that he had established, such as taking supplements and keeping journals,” court filings state.

He also promised to hold the patients’ funds in escrow until the year was up, prosecutors said.

But prosecutors said Young never received a grant from Vanderbilt, nor did he put the patients’ money in escrow, according to the news release. Instead, prosecutors said he used the funds to pay off his own personal credit cards and make monthly payments on the credit and loan accounts.

He’s also accused of changing the mailing address on those accounts to a post office box in his name so patients never saw the account statements, which allowed him to “keep his scheme going so that he could recruit additional patients to participate in the fictitious grant study,” the release states.

Patients also weren’t given the promised nutritional supplements, coaching, gym memberships or acupuncture they’d been promised, prosecutors said.

In the end, Integrative Medical Services “generated little, if any, revenue,” according to the release. Young, meanwhile, allegedly net $669,470 from the CareCredit and Health Credit Services accounts.

The alleged scheme continued until July 2019.

Young has been issued a criminal summons and is ordered to appear at the U.S. Marshal Service on or before Nov. 6 at 10 a.m., court filings show.