PHILADELPHIA, PA — A Florida man who pitched a high-tech solution to help addiction recovery patients while secretly running a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme was sentenced Wednesday to more than five years in federal prison, prosecutors said.
United States Attorney David Metcalf announced that Henry Ford, also known as Cleothus “Lefty” Jackson, 51, of Port St. Lucie, Florida, was sentenced on Wednesday, January 21, 2026, to 66 months in prison, followed by three years of supervised release. Ford was also ordered to pay $2,095,480 in restitution for defrauding investors out of approximately $5 million.
The sentence was imposed by United States District Judge Joel H. Slomsky.
Ford was charged by federal indictment in March 2023 and pleaded guilty in May 2025 to one count of securities fraud and seven counts of wire fraud.
According to court documents and statements made in court, Ford founded and operated a company called Fallcatcher, which he claimed was developing an electronic system to track medication use by addiction recovery patients in an effort to prevent relapse.
By May 2018, prosecutors said Fallcatcher was running out of money, prompting Ford to seek additional investors. To do so, he enlisted an acquaintance in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania who had access to a broad investor network. Ford provided that individual with false and misleading information about Fallcatcher’s finances, prospects, and partnerships, knowing it would be shared with potential investors.
Federal authorities said Ford also made in-person presentations to investors in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, where he repeated false claims about the business and displayed a fraudulent letter of interest that falsely stated a major insurance company had agreed to run a pilot program using Fallcatcher’s system. After those presentations, additional misleading statements were distributed to investors at Ford’s direction.
As a result of the scheme, approximately 60 investors collectively invested about $5 million in Fallcatcher, prosecutors said.
The fraud continued even after federal scrutiny began. In 2018, the Securities and Exchange Commission launched an investigation into Ford’s acquaintance, triggering document requests related to Fallcatcher. During the SEC investigation in late 2018 and the first half of 2019, Ford took steps to conceal the fraud, including providing what appeared to be corroborating emails to support the fake letter of interest. Investigators later determined those emails were fabricated as well.
The case was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. It was prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Patrick J. Murray and Francis A. Weber. The SEC’s New York Regional Office investigated and litigated related civil securities fraud charges that formed part of the criminal case.
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