Florida execs sentenced in $233M Obamacare fraud that targeted homeless, hurricane victims
FIRST ON FOX: The president of a Florida insurance brokerage firm and the CEO of a marketing company were sentenced Wednesday to 20 years each in prison for leading a sprawling, $233 million Affordable Care Act fraud scheme that preyed on Florida's most vulnerable residents — including homeless and jobless individuals and newly displaced hurricane victims — to pocket millions in unearned commissions.
Cory Lloyd, 46, of Stuart, Florida, and Steven Strong, 42, of Mansfield, Texas, were convicted of conspiracy and fraud for their roles in the scheme, which involved lying and falsifying government forms to obtain coverage for individuals, and lying to or bribing would-be enrollees to sign up for plans — even when they knew doing so would cost them their existing insurance coverage. In addition to their prison time, the pair were ordered to pay $180.6 million in restitution to their victims.
Lloyd and Strong profited handsomely for years from the scheme, Justice Department officials said, using the proceeds to purchase luxury vehicles, an 80-foot yacht and an oceanfront home in the Florida Keys.
"Preying upon medically compromised consumers to rob hundreds of millions of taxpayer-funded programs is evil and unforgivable," Attorney General Pam Bondi told Fox News Digital in a statement.
"Fraud schemes like this rob citizens and shake faith in our institutions — today’s sentencing is the latest example of this DOJ’s commitment to fighting fraud nationwide," Bondi said.
An estimated 35,000 individuals were fraudulently enrolled in Affordable Care Act plans during the years-long scheme led by Lloyd and Strong, Justice Department officials with knowledge of the case told Fox News Digital. The two sought more than $233 million in fraudulent payments, including about $180 million in federal Affordable Care Act funding.
"These defendants were sophisticated, licensed insurance brokers," Assistant Attorney General A. Tysen Duva of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division said in a statement. "They had everything and intentionally took advantage of people who had nothing. The message from these sentences is simple: those who seek to line their own pockets with taxpayer dollars, victimize our most vulnerable and deplete federal programs will be held accountable."
The two intentionally targeted people in the state who were experiencing homelessness, according to court documents, and people experiencing mental health disorders, including addiction to opioids or other drugs, according to materials reviewed by Fox News Digital.
Prosecutors said at trial that Lloyd and Strong conspired to circumvent federal income and eligibility verification safeguards. They also intentionally submitted Medicaid applications designed to trigger denials, allowing them to steer those same individuals into fully subsidized Affordable Care Act plans outside the open enrollment period — maximizing commissions year-round.
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Their lavish lifestyle contrasted starkly with that of the individuals they lied to and scammed. "One of the really awful things about the case is that it's not only a scheme that's taking money from the elderly and the disabled, and defrauding the taxpayers, but that it actually resulted in real harm to the patients as well," one Justice Department official said in an interview.
That harm included individuals losing access to life-saving treatments for opioid use disorders, mental health disorders and serious infectious diseases.
Text messages introduced at trial showed Strong and Lloyd discussing sending "street marketers" into Florida hurricane shelters to recruit enrollees.
In one text exchange, Strong suggested sending their team of "street marketers" into Florida hurricane shelters to recruit enrollees. Lloyd responded enthusiastically, stating, "It’s a killer idea, if we could pull it off!"
Prosecutors said the efforts were particularly harmful because they disrupted existing coverage plans and jeopardized access to treatment for serious conditions.
Many of the victims were experiencing homelessness, unemployment or qualified for Medicaid coverage — an insurance option for low-income or vulnerable populations that, in many cases, best suited their needs.
Jurors heard from a Jacksonville-based psychiatrist who treats homeless individuals and testified about the harm some of his patients suffered as a result of the fraud, which caused them to lose their Medicaid coverage.
This included an individual "living in the woods behind Walmart" who was suffering from schizoaffective disorder, a person familiar with the case told Fox News Digital.
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Like others, this individual had previously been enrolled in Medicaid, which covered the entirety of a $2,000 shot used to treat the schizoaffective disorder. Enrollment in an Affordable Care Act plan caused the individual to lose that coverage.
The sentencing comes as the Justice Department has moved aggressively to crack down on health care fraud, including through its ongoing "strike force" program, which operates across 25 federal districts and has resulted in criminal charges against about 5,000 individuals, according to information shared with Fox News Digital.
It also comes as the DOJ's Health Care Fraud Unit secured the largest national health care fraud takedown in its history in 2025, officials said — charging more than $15 billion in alleged losses and forfeitures and returning more than $560 million to the public.
Justice Department officials noted the amount is "many, many, many times our annual budget."