A federal jury in the Middle District of Florida has convicted Sophie Dufort, 57, of Gainesville, Florida, for her role in a scheme that submitted more than $8.6 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on Tuesday, October 27, 2026. Dufort owned a durable medical equipment (DME) company and managed several other DME companies, and prosecutors said the scheme took advantage of elderly and disabled Medicare beneficiaries.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, Dufort conspired with Paula Pirone, 70, of Ocala, Florida, and others to submit fraudulent claims to Medicare based on fake doctors' prescriptions for orthotic braces — the rigid supports worn on knees, backs, wrists and other joints.
How the fake prescriptions were produced
Prosecutors said Dufort and her co-conspirators illegally bought the prescriptions from purported marketing companies that used high-pressure and manipulative telemarketing calls to obtain Medicare beneficiaries' information. When complaints arose that the voice on purported call recordings did not match the beneficiary's voice, one co-conspirator explained, according to the evidence, that "some of the calls from overseas would be faked" and used to justify a bogus prescription.
The marketing companies then paid medical practitioners to sign prescriptions for orthotic braces without contacting or evaluating the patients, or stole doctors' credentials to create forged prescriptions, and sold those prescriptions to the DME companies run by Dufort and her co-conspirators, prosecutors said.
The companies then shipped braces to the Medicare beneficiaries and billed Medicare for millions of dollars, even though the beneficiaries did not want or need the braces and no doctor had examined them to determine whether they needed them. A medical expert testified that using these combinations of braces could be "very dangerous" for the elderly Medicare population. When people complained and wanted to return the braces, prosecutors said, they were told to "just get rid of them or . . . just pass them down," so the companies would not have to pay Medicare back.
The jury's verdict
The jury convicted Dufort of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, two counts of health care fraud, one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States and to offer and pay illegal kickbacks, and one count of offering and paying illegal kickbacks.
She faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for the conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, 10 years in prison for each health care fraud count and for the kickback count, and 5 years in prison for the conspiracy to defraud the United States and to offer and pay illegal kickbacks. A federal district court judge will determine the actual sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.
A sentencing hearing is scheduled for January 2027. Until then, the court's decision in January will set how long Dufort spends in federal prison; the Justice Department announcement does not state a separate outcome for co-conspirator Paula Pirone in this case.
Who brought the case
The case was investigated by the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG) and the FBI. It is being prosecuted by Trial Attorney Jody King of the Fraud Division's Health Care Fraud Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney William Hamilton for the Middle District of Florida. Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the Justice Department's National Fraud Enforcement Division and U.S. Attorney Gregory W. Kehoe for the Middle District of Florida made the announcement.
Source: Alachua Chronicle
Part of a much larger crackdown
The Justice Department says its Health Care Fraud Strike Force Program — nine strike forces operating in federal districts across the country — has charged more than 6,200 defendants who collectively billed federal health care programs and private insurers more than $45 billion since 2007. For readers, including the many diaspora families whose elderly parents are on Medicare, the case is a reminder of the pattern prosecutors describe: an unsolicited telemarketing call offering a "free" brace is how schemes like this one began, and beneficiaries' Medicare information was the product being bought and sold.