A Kendall County woman accused of being an unlicensed doctor was arrested again Wednesday, facing new charges related to a years-long investigation into her clinic.
Catharina Hunter, 46, was indicted on three counts of fraudulent use and possession of identifying information.
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Hunter was initially charged with three counts of practicing without a medical license in February 2019 after an investigation that first began in 2016.
In a court hearing on Friday, the prosecutor indicated they will drop the previous charges against Hunter and instead pursue the fraud charges, which are state jail felonies. If convicted, each count is punishable by up to $10,000 in fines and two years in jail.
Hunter, whose aliases include Katinca Hunter, Katinca Lindeque and Katherine Hunter, is accused of using National Provider Identifier (NPI) and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) numbers of a pediatric surgeon in Chicago with a similar name.
In the past, Hunter would provide treatment to cancer patients, charging up to $1,700 for a single treatment session.
Hunter was also the subject of an undercover KSAT 12 Defenders investigation in June 2019.
$300 for consultation
Posing as a prospective patient, a KSAT 12 producer spoke with Hunter on June 3, 2019, on the phone about paying for a consultation for her services.
Hunter said for $300, she would do a consult and “decide what is needed for you.”
She then said the producer could go through up to six different types of analysis, including blood work, urinalysis and saliva testing, before Hunter would decide what he needed treatment-wise.
After at first saying the consultation would need to take place at her clinic in the 6300 block of De Zavala Road in northwest San Antonio, Hunter then agreed to meet the producer at her second clinic, located outside New Braunfels on State Highway 46.
Hunter did point out during the phone call that she is not a Texas Medical Board physician and, therefore, could not give the producer a formal diagnosis.
The clinic appeared to be inside a manufactured home on a large plot of industrial property, undercover footage shot by the Defenders showed.
A small sign in front of the manufactured home, read, “Hope of Life Healing Priory.”
The producer canceled the appointment before it was scheduled to take place.
A second person listed on the clinic’s website is a licensed physician in Texas, according to state records. He did not respond to several messages sent through social media and to several requests for comment left at other San Antonio-area medical practices associated with him.
The Defenders have been unable to determine what treatments Hunter is currently offering and whether she needs a state medical license to provide them.
$1,700 treatment
One of those patients is Ann Hollister, a San Antonio woman who began being treated by Hunter in Boerne in late 2015, before eventually returning for care under a traditional oncologist.
Hollister, who died in November 2016, paid as much as $1,700 for a single treatment from Hunter, according to invoices provided by her longtime partner, Barry Genaske.
“It was having no positive effect whatsoever,” said Genaske, who added that Hollister first sought treatment from Hunter after being told about her homeopathic approach.
“We started to get the idea that there was something wrong here. The treatments were extremely expensive,” said Genaske.
Invoices provided by Genaske show that Hunter charged Hollister $1,700 in February 2016 to perform autohemo perfusion-minor, a procedure that involves removing a patient’s blood from one arm and pumping it back into another arm after it has been sterilized and filtered.
Among the other records provided by Genaske was a February 2016 prescription for allopurinol that was written and signed by Hunter, using the federal identification and license numbers of the Chicago surgeon.
Hunter denied writing prescriptions specifically for allopurinol when asked by the Defenders.