The Department of Justice filed a motion seeking an immediate asset freeze and receivership for telehealth company Zealthy and its CEO Kyle Robertson over alleged fraudulent prescribing and other deceptive practices, according to court documents.
The DOJ filed an amended complaint last week against Zealthy and its CEO and founder Kyle Robertson, the co-founder and former top executive at mental health startup Cerebral.
“At two consecutive telehealth companies that he founded and has led during the past six years—Cerebral, Inc., and then Zealthy, Inc.—defendant Kyle Robertson has engaged in wide-ranging lawbreaking that has harmed tens of thousands of telehealth patients,” the DOJ wrote in its amended complaint.
Prosecutors said Zealthy presents itself as providing legitimate telehealth services but is engaged in “systemic improper and dangerous telemedical practices,” including “the routine ordering of prescriptions by foreign call-center contractors and other non-clinicians with no medical license and the systemic misuse of the name and National Provider Identifier (“NPI”) number of doctors to order many thousands of prescriptions for patients they did not actually treat or order a prescription for, and without their knowledge or clinical supervision—and even when they have not even been employed by Zealthy,” according to the court documents.
The DOJ filed the motion seeking the asset freeze after it obtained new documents in the discovery phase of a lawsuit filed against three telehealth companies in 2024.
Prosecutors say that Zealthy lost its certification from a pivotal credentialing organization called LegitScript in 2025.
“Robertson has falsely touted low costs, misrepresented the nature of telemedicine services, and made hollow assurances that consumers! will “Pay $0 today” and can “Cancel anytime”—all to bait consumers into hard-to-cancel subscriptions while often immediately initiating unauthorized charges to their cards,” the DOJ alleges.
The DOJ alleges that Robertson, while leading both Cerebral and Zealthy, “charged tens of thousands of consumers without their consent while deliberately stymying their subscription cancellation attempts in violation of the Restore Online Shoppers’ Confidence Act (ROSCA).”
The DOJ also accuses Robertson of directing the misuse of patients’ private health information without their knowledge, including data on their medical conditions, symptoms, and treatments, “to drive millions of dollars’ worth of social media marketing campaigns.”
In its motion, the DOJ argues that a receivership and asset freeze is necessary to stop “Robertson and Zealthy’s runaway campaign of lawbreaking, which is actively deceiving telehealth patients, endangering their safety, and raiding their bank accounts,” the DOJ said in the complaint.
The filing said the consumer redress and FTC rule violation penalty in the case may bankrupt Zealthy.
Zealthy launched in early 2023 and offers telehealth services for GLP-1 weight loss programs, mental health care, skincare treatments, hair loss solutions, erectile dysfunction support, birth control, and hormone optimization therapies.
In November 2024, Cerebral agreed to pay a fine of more than $3.6 million for allegedly engaging in practices that encouraged the unauthorized distribution of controlled substances from 2019 to 2022. The fine was part of a non-prosecution agreement with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of New York. An additional fine against Cerebral was deferred “in light of the company’s current financial condition,” the federal government said when the agreement was announced.
In April 2024, the digital behavioral health company agreed to pay the government more than $7 million over allegations that it it disclosed consumers’ sensitive personal health information and other sensitive data to third parties for advertising purposes and failed to honor its easy cancellation promises.
Robertson stepped down from Cerebral in May 2022 as the company faced a DOJ investigation for its prescribing practices as “possible violations” of the Controlled Substances Act.
