A resident of Wellington, Florida, was sentenced this Thursday to 84 months in federal prison for operating six entirely fictitious cosmetic surgery clinics and using the stolen identities of more than 100 individuals to defraud medical lenders out of approximately 2.3 million dollars.
According to the press release from the U.S. Department of Justice, Judge Rodolfo A. Ruiz II of the Southern District of Florida sentenced Jacquez Dion Tullis, 42, to a total of 60 months for conspiracy to commit bank fraud and 24 consecutive months for aggravated identity theft, plus five years of supervised release.
The scheme operated from April 2018 to February 2024 and worked as follows: Tullis and his accomplices registered the clinics with the Florida Department of State using stolen personal data from practicing doctors, who appeared as owners without their knowledge.
Once the lenders approved the clinics as authorized businesses, the conspirators submitted fraudulent credit applications in the names of over 100 victims, claiming that the funds would be for surgeries and treatments that were never performed.
Some of the alleged "patients" had already passed away before the dates on which they supposedly received care, according to death records reviewed by the authorities.
The affected lenders —two banks insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) and four financial technology companies— incurred actual losses of approximately $2.3 million, out of a total requested amount of $3.1 million.
In addition to defrauding private lenders, between April and August 2020, Tullis submitted at least nine fraudulent disaster assistance loan applications to the Small Business Administration (SBA), seeking to obtain $696,860 in federal relief funds under the CARES Act for the COVID-19 pandemic.
Tullis was ordered to pay $2,309,859 in restitution and a forfeiture judgment in the same amount.
"She built fake medical clinics using stolen identities, including those of practicing doctors and deceased individuals, and used them to steal millions from lenders," said Deputy Attorney General Colin M. McDonald. "When the pandemic hit, Tullis attempted to exploit taxpayer-funded relief funds meant for struggling small businesses."
The case involved two co-defendants who had already been sentenced. Taneika Nakia Pace, 50 years old and residing in Hallandale Beach, who managed two of the fake clinics, was sentenced in September to six months in prison and four years of supervised release. Junaque Nicole Tullis, 46 years old and residing in Coral Springs, who submitted fraudulent EIDL applications for approximately $164,521, received eight months in prison in August.
The three defendants were part of the National Operation Against Health Care Fraud of 2025, announced by the Department of Justice on June 30, 2025, the largest in the history of that institution, with 324 defendants across 50 federal districts and over $14.6 billion in alleged fraud.
The case was investigated by the FBI Miami. The special agent in charge, Brett D. Skiles, warned that "fraud schemes of this magnitude undermine the integrity of our financial system and inflict real harm on the victims whose identities are stolen and misused."
The south of Florida is historically regarded as the epicenter of healthcare fraud in the United States. A case with a similar modus operandi was reported in Miami last August, when Osmel Núñez was arrested for using the identities of deceased individuals to process over $1.1 million in fraudulent charges through a medical aesthetics clinic.
Related videos:
Filed under: