FILE - In this Aug. 27, 2009 file photo, stacks of expired malaria medication are stored in a box at an NGO's village office near Pailin, Cambodia. (AP Photo/David Longstreath, File)

A federal judge in Mobile has fined the former owner of a Birmingham specialty pharmacy $1.75 million for making illegal payments for referrals of lucrative hemophilia patients on Alabama Medicaid.

In a court hearing Monday, U.S. District Judge Kristi DuBose also ordered Jeff Vernon to serve six months in a Birmingham halfway house.

Vernon and Lori Skowronski Brill of Pascagoula, Miss., were convicted in February.

The judge sentenced Brill to two years and three months in prison for receiving payments for referrals.