# Patricia Derges **Patricia "Tricia" Ashton Derges** is a former Republican member of the Missouri House of Representatives (District 140, Christian County) who served a single term from January 2021 until her resignation on July 1, 2022, three days after a federal jury convicted her on **all 22 felony counts** of a multi-scheme fraud indictment. She was sentenced in February 2023 to **75 months in federal prison** and **$500,600.54 in restitution** — one of the largest fraud sentences imposed on a sitting-era state legislator in the pandemic-relief era, and the anchor case for [[Republican Officeholder Fraud]] at the state level. Her case is unusual in the [[Fraud]] literature because it braids together three normally separate criminal categories: pandemic-relief theft, medical consumer fraud against terminally ill patients, and illegal opioid distribution. It is also notable for what has *not* happened to her — unlike nearly every federal Republican officeholder convicted of comparable financial crimes, Derges has received **no pardon, no commutation, and no clemency of any kind**. ## Credentials — the "doctor" who was not one Derges was never a licensed physician. She earned a medical degree from the Caribbean Medical University of Curaçao in May 2014, failed to secure a residency, and in September 2017 obtained a Missouri **assistant physician** license — a mid-level credential created by Missouri statute that requires practice under a collaborative arrangement with a supervising physician. She nonetheless marketed herself and her clinics as a "Leader in … Regenerative Medicine," promoting stem cell therapy through seminars, media interviews, and social media. The gap between the credential she held and the authority she projected is the operating premise of the entire fraud. She controlled two entities that the schemes ran through: - **Lift Up Someone Today, Inc.** — a nonprofit operating a medical and dental clinic in Springfield, Missouri. - **Ozark Valley Medical Clinic** — a **for-profit** business with locations in Springfield, Ozark, and Branson. The nonprofit/for-profit boundary between them is precisely what she erased. ## Scheme one — CARES Act pandemic relief fraud In 2020 Derges applied for **$882,644** in federal Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funds administered by Greene County, claiming her nonprofit Lift Up had incurred COVID-19 testing expenses. The claim was false in a structurally simple way. Derges submitted invoices from a testing laboratory, **Dynamic DNA**, totaling $296,574 — but those tests had been performed on patients of her **for-profit** Ozark Valley clinic, and those patients had **already paid for them**, generating roughly $517,000 to $1 million in revenue she had personally collected. Lift Up's own clinic had closed in March 2020 and remained closed through June 2020; it performed no COVID testing at all during the period claimed. Greene County awarded Lift Up **$296,574**. Derges transferred the money to her for-profit entity. ## Scheme two — the fake stem cell treatments From December 2018 through May 2020, Derges sold what she marketed to patients as **stem cell treatment**. The product was **amniotic fluid** purchased from the University of Utah, which had explicitly confirmed to her that the material was **acellular** — it contained no stem cells whatsoever. She bought it for roughly $244 to $438 per unit and sold it at **$950 to $1,450 per milliliter**, advertising it as a therapy for kidney disease, COPD, Lyme disease, urinary incontinence, erectile dysfunction, and — as the pandemic began — COVID-19. Patients paid approximately **$191,815** for a product that could not do what she said it did. > [!quote] "This disgraced health care professional exploited her patients, some with terminal illnesses." > — U.S. Attorney Teresa Moore, Western District of Missouri, on the sentencing of Patricia Derges, 2023-02-28 ## Scheme three — illegal prescribing and false statements Derges electronically prescribed **Oxycodone and Adderall** — Schedule II controlled substances — transmitting prescriptions directly to pharmacies without conducting the in-person medical evaluations federal law requires. This produced 10 of her 22 counts. She then lied to federal agents twice: telling them the amniotic product contained mesenchymal stem cells, and denying she had treated a particular patient for urinary incontinence. Both statements were false, and both became separate felony counts. ## Prosecution, conviction, and appeal | Stage | Date | Outcome | |---|---|---| | Indictment | February 2021 (superseded March 2021) | 20 counts, later 22 | | Trial begins | 2022-06-13 | W.D. Mo., Springfield; Judge Brian C. Wimes | | Jury verdict | 2022-06-28 | **Guilty on all 22 counts** after ~6 hours of deliberation | | Resignation from Missouri House | 2022-07-01 | Three days after conviction | | Sentencing | 2023-02-28 | **75 months** without parole; **$500,600.54** restitution | | Medical license revoked | 2023-03-21 | Missouri Board for the Healing Arts; may reapply after seven years | | Direct appeal decided | 2025-02-10 | **Eighth Circuit affirms** conviction and full restitution | | Compassionate release | 2025-03-10 | **Denied** by the district court | The 22 counts break down as **10 counts of wire fraud**, **10 counts of distributing controlled substances over the internet without a valid prescription**, and **2 counts of making false statements to federal agents**. On appeal Derges argued *pro se* that the evidence was insufficient and that the restitution figure was excessive. In *United States v. Derges*, No. 23-1462, the Eighth Circuit rejected both arguments, holding the government had proven she misled patients about stem cells and gave false grant information, and finding no plain error in ordering restitution for the full loss sustained by Greene County and her patients. ## The clemency that never came This is the analytically load-bearing fact. As of August 2026, Derges does **not** appear on the Department of Justice Office of the Pardon Attorney's list of clemency grants by [[Donald Trump]] in his second term, and did not appear on the first-term list. She remains in Bureau of Prisons custody. Set against the federal cases catalogued in [[Republican Officeholder Fraud]], the contrast is stark. [[Duncan D. Hunter]] stole roughly $250,000 in campaign funds and never served a day. [[Christopher Collins]] served about two months of a 26-month insider-trading sentence. [[George Santos]] served roughly three months of an 87-month sentence before [[Donald Trump]] commuted it in October 2025. Derges — convicted of stealing federal pandemic-relief money and selling sham medicine to dying people — has served years. The distinguishing variable is not severity, restitution, or public harm. It is that Derges was a **state** legislator in Missouri with no relationship to Trump, no national profile, and nothing to trade. She is the control group against which [[Pardons as Currency]] can be measured: the Republican officeholder whose fraud was not politically useful enough to forgive. > [!note] Open thread > Derges's appeal of the compassionate-release denial was remanded by the Eighth Circuit on 2025-07-14 (No. 25-1767) for the district court to decide whether she showed excusable neglect for an untimely notice of appeal. The outcome on remand is not established here and would require a PACER docket check (W.D. Mo. 6:21-cr-03039). Bureau of Prisons records list her in reentry status under RRM Kansas City with a projected release date in September 2027; that figure is drawn from the BOP Inmate Locator and has not been independently corroborated against a court document. ## KB significance Derges matters to this knowledge base for four reasons: 1. **She is the cleanest available case of pandemic-relief fraud by a sitting Republican legislator.** The CARES Act scheme is not ambiguous self-dealing — it is a documented transfer of federal emergency money from a nonprofit shell to a for-profit business she owned. 2. **She collapses the "job creator" and "grifter" frames into one person.** She campaigned as a health care provider and community benefactor while the clinic underwriting that identity was the instrument of the theft. 3. **She is the negative control for [[Pardons as Currency]].** Comparable and lesser federal crimes drew clemency; hers did not. The variable that explains the difference is proximity to Trump, not conduct. 4. **She anchors the state-level tier of [[Republican Officeholder Fraud]].** Most catalogued cases are congressional. Derges demonstrates the same pattern operating in a state legislature, where oversight is thinner and the relief money moved through county commissions. ## See also - Pattern: [[Republican Officeholder Fraud]] - Concepts: [[Fraud]] · [[Corruption]] · [[Elite Impunity]] · [[Accountability]] - Clemency mechanism: [[Pardons as Currency]] · [[Trump 2025 Pardon Spree]] - Comparison cases: [[George Santos]] · [[Duncan D. Hunter]] · [[Christopher Collins]] · [[Steve Stockman]] - Relief-money parallel: [[Mississippi Welfare Funds Scandal]] - Context: [[COVID-19 Pandemic]]