Patricia Ashton Derges
Derges, a 63-year-old Republican who was elected to the state House in November, now faces 20 criminal charges, including wire fraud and distribution by means of the Internet without a valid prescription, a federal grand jury indictment unsealed on Tuesday revealed. 1
- Derges Indicted for Stem Cell Fraud Scheme
An elected Missouri state representative has been indicted by a federal grand jury for a fraud scheme in which she made false claims about a supposed stem cell treatment marketed through her clinics in southern Missouri, and for illegally providing prescription drugs to clients of those clinics. 2
- The Washington Post, Jacklyn Peiser, February 3, 2021 – A Missouri lawmaker sold a ‘potential cure’ for coronavirus. It was a fake stem cell treatment, feds say.
- Justice.gov, February 1, 2021 – State Lawmaker Indicted for Stem Cell Fraud Scheme, Illegally Distributing Prescription Drugs
- Derges’s Scheme to Defraud
The Federal Grand Jury Indictment
Below is a portion of the indictment. Click on the PDF footnote to read the full indictment.
“Beginning on an unknown date, but no later than in or about December 2018, and continuing until in or about May 2020, in Greene County, in the Western District of Missouri, and elsewhere, DERGES, with the intent to defraud, devised and intended to devise a scheme to defraud her patients, and to obtain money and property by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises.” 3
- Indictment, Paragraph 47 – The Scheme to Defraud (PDF)