Federal prosecutors said a family-linked scheme billed Medicaid for years while paying patients with gift cards and hiding money, cars and property bought with the proceeds.
NEW BERN, NC — Four people tied to a North Carolina substance abuse treatment business were sentenced in a Medicaid fraud case that authorities said generated $12.7 million in false billings, paid more than $1 million in kickbacks to patients and ended with a company shutdown, a $15 million fine and the seizure of more than $6 million in assets.
The sentencings close a high-profile case built around Life Touch LLC, a treatment provider that operated in Kinston and Goldsboro, and a related lab company, 1st Choice Healthcare Services. Prosecutors said the business used gift cards and other payments to lure Medicaid patients with substance use disorders into attending services and then billed the state program for treatment and testing tied to that traffic. The case mattered not only because of the dollar amount, but because investigators said the scheme exploited people trying to recover from addiction while draining money from a public health program meant to serve low-income residents.
Federal prosecutors said the conduct stretched from 2018 into 2023. During that period, Brandon Eugene Sims, 40, of Manvel, Texas, owned Life Touch, while his mother, Francine Sims Super, 64, worked as office manager in Kinston and his sister, Kimberly Mable Sims, 39, of Snow Hill, ran 1st Choice Healthcare Services, a urine drug screening company. Keke Komeko Johnson, 53, of Goldsboro, served as the Medicaid biller for both Life Touch locations and the related lab business and also held compliance and quality management duties. Authorities said workers at Life Touch routinely handed out gift cards to patients based on how many days each week they appeared for services. Prosecutors said that practice turned attendance into a payment system and fueled Medicaid claims for substance abuse treatment and lab work. U.S. Attorney Ellis Boyle said the case showed “shameful abuse” of vulnerable patients, adding that the fraud targeted people “trying to recover their lives and dignity.”
According to prosecutors and court records, the operation worked through two related streams. One involved Life Touch itself, which was contracted to provide substance abuse services in eastern North Carolina. The second involved 1st Choice, a lab company that tested urine samples from Life Touch patients and billed Medicaid for those services. Investigators said Johnson and Super oversaw more than $1 million in kickbacks to patients, often through gift cards bought with reimbursement funds or routed through personal accounts. They also said the lab side of the business became its own payoff system. Court records said Kimberly Sims, Super and Johnson agreed to split profits from 1st Choice billings tied to Life Touch patients in roughly equal shares, even though Medicaid paperwork listed Kimberly Sims as the sole owner. Prosecutors said Super was paid more than $400,000 from 1st Choice even though she did no work for the lab, and Johnson received more than $400,000 in payments that far exceeded what she later told investigators she earned.
The fraud case widened as investigators examined how the company responded when auditors started asking questions. Prosecutors said Johnson and Super lied during multiple reviews and created false documents to make it appear that Life Touch was not giving patients gift cards or other incentives. One false narrative, authorities said, was used to reassure Eastpointe, the managed care organization overseeing certain Medicaid substance abuse payments in the region, that the clinic was following the rules. Prosecutors said Johnson later lied again during a civil investigation by the North Carolina Medicaid Investigations Division. By that point, investigators had concluded the inducements and related billing had produced more than $12.7 million in fraudulent claims, though earlier charging papers alleged that over a longer span the kickback practices at Life Touch were tied to more than $25 million in Medicaid payments. That gap reflects the difference between the broader conduct described in charging documents and the amount used in the final sentencings.
The case also brought a detailed picture of how the money moved after the claims were paid. Prosecutors said Brandon Sims, who lived in Texas while owning the North Carolina business, received millions in proceeds from the operation and did not file or pay federal taxes on that income. After he learned of the criminal investigation in November 2023, authorities said, he withdrew more than $1 million in cash from a bank account and hid it in a safe at his Texas home. Agents later executed a search warrant and seized about $1.3 million in cash, along with a 2021 Rolls-Royce Cullinan, a 2021 Chevrolet Corvette and a 2020 Chevrolet Silverado. Investigators also seized more real estate and other assets. In the final accounting, federal authorities said more than $6 million in criminal proceeds were taken in the form of cash, real property and other valuables. Prosecutors portrayed those seizures as evidence that the clinic and the related lab had become vehicles for personal enrichment, not treatment.
The legal steps unfolded over several months. Federal prosecutors announced charges tied to the case in 2025 as part of a broader national health care fraud takedown. In those filings, they said Johnson, Super and Kimberly Sims were connected to the payment of more than $1 million in illegal remunerations to Life Touch patients and to false statements made to Medicaid auditors. Johnson and Super pleaded guilty in August 2025. At the time, prosecutors said Johnson faced up to 11 years in prison and Super faced up to six years. Super was sentenced Jan. 14, 2026, by U.S. District Judge Louise W. Flanagan to six years in federal prison. Life Touch LLC and Brandon Sims were sentenced Feb. 19, 2026. The company was ordered to dissolve, pay a $15 million fine, serve five years of probation and repay $12,762,511.30 to the North Carolina Medicaid program. Brandon Sims was sentenced to 30 months in prison and ordered to pay $1,892,919.40 to the IRS. Johnson was sentenced Feb. 24, 2026, to six years in prison and ordered to pay $15,286,912.91 to North Carolina Medicaid and $331,851 to the IRS. Kimberly Sims received two years in prison and was ordered to pay $1,845,276.95 to Medicaid and $207,383 to the IRS. Super was ordered to pay $15,286,912.91 to Medicaid and $373,810 to the IRS.
Beyond the dollar totals, the case left a sharp local record of how addiction treatment can be turned into a revenue machine when billing incentives outrun clinical judgment. Life Touch operated in Kinston and Goldsboro, serving Medicaid recipients in a region where substance use treatment is both medically necessary and heavily scrutinized. Prosecutors said the clinic used that setting to build patient volume with gift cards, then paired the attendance with billing for treatment and repeated urine drug screens. Federal investigators, the IRS, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General and the North Carolina Attorney General’s Medicaid Investigations Division all took part in the case. FBI Charlotte Special Agent in Charge James C. Barnacle Jr. said after one sentencing that health care fraud drains taxpayer money and weakens trust in programs meant to support people in real need. HHS-OIG Special Agent in Charge Kelly Blackmon said kickback arrangements can distort care by injecting hidden financial motives into treatment decisions.
Prosecutors also said the scheme continued even after warning signs emerged elsewhere in the same sector. Court records said the defendants knew that another laboratory owner had been charged in 2022 in a separate lab kickback case, yet the payments connected to 1st Choice continued. Charging papers said Kimberly Sims formed 1st Choice in 2016, enrolled it with Medicaid by 2019 and used it to bill more than $2.5 million for urine drug testing of Life Touch patients between October 2019 and March 2023. Investigators said Medicaid enrollment and recertification forms falsely concealed the ownership structure by stating there were no partners with 5% or more ownership. Prosecutors said Kimberly Sims later told investigators that Johnson was generally paid only 2% of 1st Choice reimbursements when the true share was about 33%. Those allegations helped support the government’s argument that the fraud was not a loose or informal practice but a coordinated arrangement involving family members, a senior employee, company paperwork, patient inducements and false statements to auditors.
The case now stands as closed in its main criminal phase, with prison sentences imposed, restitution ordered and the treatment company permanently shut down. The next milestones are the collection of restitution, the liquidation or final disposition of forfeited property and the service of prison terms already ordered by the court. For North Carolina officials, the record in court showed where the scheme stood when it ended: a dissolved provider, millions in losses assigned to the defendants and a public warning from prosecutors that Medicaid fraud cases tied to addiction treatment will remain a major target.
Author note: Last updated March 20, 2026.