The punishment phase of a Florida Medicare fraud case is still ahead. A federal judge is scheduled to sentence Sophie Dufort of Gainesville in January 2027, after a jury found her guilty of a scheme built on braces sent to patients no doctor had examined. The Justice Department release also names a second person, a 70-year-old Ocala woman, as a co-conspirator.
The department said Oct. 27 that Dufort, 57, was convicted at trial in the Middle District of Florida. The case turned on more than $8.6 million in fraudulent claims submitted to Medicare. The release gives the month of sentencing but not a day, and a scheduled court date can move.
Why does a Medicare patient have a stake in a case like this?
Patients are not defendants here, but they are the ones whose information the scheme used. Prosecutors say marketing companies placed high-pressure telemarketing calls to pull Medicare details out of beneficiaries, then braces arrived that nobody wanted. Some who asked to return the equipment were told to throw it away, which kept the defendants from repaying Medicare…