The Justice Department’s novel attempt to retry a Florida man whose sentence was commuted by President Donald Trump has ended in a plea deal.
A judge overseeing the case in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida announced the deal in the medical fraud case of Philip Esformes Thursday, saying that a plea and sentencing hearing will be set in the future.
Esformes was convicted in 2019 for his role in a billion-dollar Medicare fraud scheme and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Trump commuted his sentence in 2020 but didn’t give him a full pardon. In 2022, the DOJ attempted to retry him on counts the original jury couldn’t agree on.
The retrial attempt raised questions about the power of a presidential commutation and whether trying Esformes violated the constitutional prohibition against being tried twice for the same crime. It also played into the debate about political interference both by Trump and the DOJ under President Joe Biden.
The DOJ said at the time of his sentencing that Esformes’ role in the healthcare fraud was the largest of its kind, that he improperly billed Medicare and Medicaid, and that he received more than $37 million from the scheme.
Kimberly Wehle, a law professor at the University of Baltimore, said previously that the controversy around the retrial attempt would encourage future presidents to use their clemency power as broadly as possible to prevent re-prosecution for the same crimes.
The DOJ and Esformes’ legal team didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The case is US v. Esformes, S.D. Fla., No. 1:16-cr-20549, Order 2/1/24.
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