In his last year in office, Trump commuted the sentences of at least five people who collectively filed nearly $1.6 billion in fraudulent claims through Medicare or Medicaid.
Among them was Judith Negron, the former owner of a Miami-area mental health company who was sentenced in 2011 to 35 years in prison for her role in filing $205 million in fraudulent Medicare claims and ordered to pay more than $87 million in restitution. Trump commuted her sentence in February 2020.
Trump also granted clemency that year to Daniela Gozes-Wagner, a Houston woman who was sentenced in 2019 to 20 years in prison for helping falsely bill more than $28 million in claims to Medicare and Medicaid for medical tests that either never happened or were unnecessary. Those tests supposedly took place at 28 testing facilities that turned out to be empty offices — and prosecutors said Gozes-Wagner went so far as to hire “seat warmers” at those offices who were instructed to notify her if Medicare investigators arrived.
In December 2020, Trump commuted the sentence of Philip Esformes, who had been convicted in 2019 “for his role in the largest health care fraud scheme ever charged by the Justice Department, involving over $1.3 billion in fraudulent claims to Medicare and Medicaid for services that were not provided, were not medically necessary or were procured through the payment of kickbacks,” the department said.
Esformes was sentenced to 20 years in prison — but was freed after serving about 4½ years, after Trump granted him clemency. The White House noted at the time that, while in prison, Esformes was “devoted to prayer” and “in declining health.” Esformes was photographed hosting and dancing at his daughter’s lavish wedding days later.
Last month, Esformes pleaded guilty to Medicare fraud again after being retried on unsettled charges that were not included in Trump’s clemency order. As part of a plea agreement, Esformes was sentenced to the time he had already served.
In the final days of his presidency, Trump granted clemency to Salomon Melgen, a Florida eye doctor who had been sentenced to 17 years in prison after being convicted for his role in defrauding Medicare out of $42 million; and to John Estin Davis, a Tennessee health-care executive who had been sentenced the year before to 42 months in prison after being convicted for his role in filing over $4.6 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare.
Louis Saccoccio, CEO of the National Health Care Anti-Fraud Association, called the Trump clemency orders “disappointing” and noted that the cases were not minor ones and probably took prosecutors a lot of time and resources to investigate.
“These are complicated cases, and usually it will take months if not, in many cases, years — maybe two, three years — to bring these cases to trial,” Saccoccio said. “Obviously, you want to send a message with respect to health-care fraud that it’s not going to be tolerated.”
Saccoccio said that in addition to the financial consequences of Medicare fraud, many cases result in patient harm. Saccoccio cited the case of Melgen, the Florida ophthalmologist, who prosecutors said would perform and bill Medicare for unnecessary injections and laser treatments on his elderly patients after falsely diagnosing them with macular degeneration.
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