The Stimwave fraud was a scheme in which the company’s founder and CEO, Laura Perryman, directed the manufacture and sale of a fake medical device component — a piece of inert plastic marketed as a working neurostimulator receiver — that was surgically implanted in thousands of chronic pain patients and billed to Medicare and private insurers at roughly $18,000 per procedure. Perryman was convicted of health care fraud in 2024 and sentenced to six years in federal prison. The company filed for bankruptcy, paid millions to resolve federal claims, and its assets were sold to a successor called Curonix LLC.
The Fake Receiver at the Center of the Case
Stimwave’s product was the StimQ Peripheral Nerve Stimulator System, used to treat chronic pain. It had three parts: an external transmitter, an implanted electrode “lead,” and an implanted receiver that picked up radiofrequency energy and passed it to the lead. The real receiver, nicknamed the “Pink Stylet,” contained a copper core and worked as an antenna. It was about 23 centimeters long, and doctors sometimes found it too big for tight anatomical spaces.
Perryman’s answer to that problem, according to prosecutors and the SEC, was a second component she called the “White Stylet.” It was made entirely of medical-grade plastic. No copper. No conductivity. It could not receive or transmit energy. The government called it a dummy — a non-functional piece of plastic with no medical purpose.1U.S. Department of Justice. Former CEO of Medical Device Company Sentenced to Six Years in Prison
Starting in spring 2018, Stimwave shipped its kits with both the real Pink Stylet and the inert White Stylet inside. Perryman told doctors and sales staff that the White Stylet was a smaller, trimmable version of the receiver that could be cut down to fit tighter spaces. She ran training sessions pushing that claim and had employees repeat it.2U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. SEC Complaint, SEC v. Laura Tyler Perryman The FDA had never cleared the component as a functional receiver.
Why the Fake Existed: The Billing Scheme
The reason for the White Stylet was money. Without a receiver implant, doctors could only bill for the lead, which paid roughly $4,000 to $6,000. With a receiver, they could add CPT code 64590 and collect another $16,000 to $18,000 from Medicare or private insurance. Stimwave sold the device to providers for about $16,000, so a doctor who couldn’t fit the real receiver lost money on every procedure.3U.S. Department of Justice. U.S. v. Perryman Indictment
Supplying the White Stylet and telling doctors to bill it as a receiver kept those sales alive. Doctors implanted the plastic piece believing it worked, then submitted claims for roughly $18,000 on top of the lead reimbursement. Between 2017 and 2020, Stimwave sold nearly 8,000 devices containing the non-functioning component, according to SEC allegations.4STAT News. SEC Fraud Charges Former Stimwave CEO The Justice Department put the resulting losses to the federal government in the millions.
What It Meant for Patients
Patients went under the knife to have a useless piece of plastic placed in their bodies. The SEC complaint said they were “unwittingly undergoing unnecessary surgeries to implant the non-functional component.”5U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. SEC Charges Former CEO of Stimwave Technologies With Fraud The lead portion could still deliver stimulation on its own in some configurations, but the White Stylet contributed nothing to pain relief. Its implantation carried the ordinary surgical risks of any invasive procedure — infection, swelling, longer recovery — for no clinical benefit.
Patient complaints kept surfacing years later. One 2023 FDA adverse event report described a device that “never really worked to relieve my pain” and that the patient later found on an FDA recall list.6U.S. Food and Drug Administration. MAUDE Adverse Event Report – Stimwave STQ4 Another report involved a patient who experienced numbness and trouble walking after a Curonix-branded device was allegedly improperly programmed.7U.S. Food and Drug Administration. MAUDE Adverse Event Report – Curonix Spinal Cord Stimulator
The Investor Side of the Fraud
The scheme fed a second fraud aimed at investors. Between April 2018 and July 2019, Perryman raised about $41 million from ten investors in a Series D round, personally handling the pitch materials and investor contact.2U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. SEC Complaint, SEC v. Laura Tyler Perryman
The SEC said she told investors the device had FDA approval (it did not, for the modified version with the fake receiver), described it as the “only effective device of its kind on the market,” and inflated revenue by recording sales at higher list prices rather than actual negotiated contract prices. Stimwave’s reported 2018 revenue of about $34 million was closer to $22 million once corrected.8CNBC. SEC Charges Ex-CEO of Stimwave With Fraud An internal investigation later found Perryman had routed more than $1.2 million in company funds to her personal accounts beyond her authorized salary and bonuses.
How Stimwave Collapsed
The fraud started coming apart in fall 2019, when Stimwave’s board pressed Perryman to professionalize the company’s accounting. She admitted overstating revenues, and the board opened an internal investigation. Perryman resigned as CEO in November 2019.2U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. SEC Complaint, SEC v. Laura Tyler Perryman
On July 15, 2020, Stimwave launched a voluntary recall of the StimQ system. The FDA classified it as a Class II recall and noted that “the product contains a non-functional component not referenced in product labeling.” The recall covered roughly 5,600 devices with the fake receiver across multiple model numbers.9U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Recall – StimQ Peripheral Nerve Stimulator System
Stimwave Technologies Incorporated and Stimwave LLC filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy on June 15, 2022, in the District of Delaware (Case No. 22-10541).10Kroll. Stimwave Technologies Bankruptcy Case Administration The bankruptcy court approved the sale of substantially all of the company’s assets to Curonix LLC in September 2022.11U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware. Stimwave Memorandum Opinion A plan of liquidation was confirmed on March 21, 2023 and took effect May 31, 2023, and Stimwave began winding down.
Perryman’s Prosecution and Sentence
The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York charged Perryman (Case No. 23-cr-117), and in December 2023 added securities fraud charges in a superseding indictment on the same day the SEC filed its civil case.5U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. SEC Charges Former CEO of Stimwave Technologies With Fraud Perryman went to trial in February 2024 before U.S. District Judge Denise L. Cote. After an eleven-day trial, a jury found her guilty on March 6, 2024, on one count of health care fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud.12U.S. Department of Justice. Former CEO of Medical Device Company Convicted
On June 17, 2024, Judge Cote sentenced her to six years in prison followed by three years of supervised release, plus a $200 criminal monetary penalty.13MedTech Dive. Stimwave CEO Sentenced to 6 Years in Prison No one else was charged by name in the criminal case; the indictment referred only to Perryman conspiring with “others known and unknown.”
Perryman appealed to the Second Circuit (Docket No. 24-1729-cr). On August 18, 2025, that court affirmed her conviction and sentence, finding that although the trial judge had erred in excluding certain defense witnesses, the error was harmless because the evidence of fraudulent intent was “overwhelming.”14Bloomberg Law. Stimwave Founder’s Health Care Fraud Convictions Hold on Appeal The Second Circuit denied rehearing and en banc review on November 18, 2025, and Perryman filed a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court in February 2026.15Supreme Court of the United States. Perryman v. United States, Petition for Writ of Certiorari
What the Company Paid
Stimwave LLC agreed to pay $8.6 million to the United States under the False Claims Act to resolve allegations that its sale of devices with the dummy component caused false claims to be submitted to federal healthcare programs.16U.S. Department of Justice. SDNY Civil Division Priorities Stimwave also entered a Non-Prosecution Agreement with the Southern District of New York carrying a $10 million penalty, against which the $8.6 million False Claims Act payment was credited.17Fierce Biotech. DOJ Charges Stimwave CEO in Fraud Scheme
The SEC’s civil case against Perryman personally (Case No. 1:23-cv-10985, S.D.N.Y.) sought permanent injunctions, disgorgement with prejudgment interest, civil penalties, and an officer-and-director bar for a public company. It remained pending before Judge Lorna Gail Schofield as of June 2026.18CourtListener. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Perryman
What Happened to the Device
Curonix LLC, which bought Stimwave’s business out of bankruptcy in late 2022, still operates as a medical device manufacturer. It sells the Freedom PNS System, a two-component permanent implant for chronic pain. In June 2024, Curonix received an FDA 510(k) clearance (K233162) expanding the Freedom system’s indications to include chronic craniofacial pain, with Stimwave’s earlier StimQ system (K171366) as the predicate device; the FDA found the two substantially equivalent in technology and materials.19U.S. Food and Drug Administration. 510(k) Clearance K233162 – Freedom Peripheral Nerve Stimulator System As of 2026, Curonix remains active in the peripheral nerve stimulation market.20Curonix LLC. Curonix Home