FEDERAL JUDGE SENTENCES POUGHKEEPSIE MAN TO PRISON AND TO MAKE $133,000 IN RESTITUTION OVER INSURANCE SCHEME

A Poughkeepsie man was sentenced Thursday to a year in federal prison and ordered to make $133,000 in restitution to retirees, small business owners and others in Dutchess, Ulster and Columbia Counties for victimizing them in an insurance scheme.

He was accused of victimizing 240 people by overcharging them for insurance, falsifying information on insurance applications to MVP Health Care Inc. of Schenectady, and collecting commissions he was not entitled to receive.

Judge Lawrence Kahn sentenced Jeffrey C. Seifts, 51, of Manchester Rd., in U.S. District Court in Albany. Seifts was ordered to surrender on May 5 to begin serving his prison sentence. He will serve one year of probation following his imprisonment.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Edward R. Broton prosecuted Seifts who pleaded guilty in October to theft from a health benefit plan. His corporation, JC Seifts & Co., Inc. pleaded guilty to mail fraud.

An investigation begun by the New York State Insurance Department led to Seifts’s arrest in 2007.

The Insurance Department started investigating Seifts after a Dutchess county woman contacted the Department and said she incurred $50,000 in medical expenses. She said she was unable to get the expenses paid under health insurance she had purchased from Seifts.

At about the same time, MVP contacted the Department saying it found irregularities in numerous health insurance applications it received from Seifts. The company said applications for different individuals appeared to contain the same handwriting.

Seifts was a licensed insurance agent. The Department revoked his license to sell insurance in 2005.