By SDCN Staff
A former NFL player who owned a marketing company and was the beneficial owner of eight durable medical equipment companies was sentenced to 196 months in prison for his role in a yearslong scheme to bilk Medicare and the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs (CHAMPVA) out of nearly $200 million by selling patient information and sham doctors’ orders for orthotic braces that patients did not want or need.
In addition to the prison sentence, the defendant, Joel Rufus French, 47, of Armory, Mississippi, was ordered to pay $110,753,619 in restitution and to forfeit approximately $17 million that the government seized from bank accounts and other assets.
“The defendant orchestrated a brazen, yearslong scheme that preyed on elderly patients and the families of disabled and deceased veterans to steal millions from Medicare and CHAMPVA,” said Acting Deputy Inspector General for Investigations Scott Lampert of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General. “By hiding behind overseas call centers, sham telemedicine companies, and straw‑owned DME suppliers, he exploited some of the most vulnerable people these programs were created to protect.”
“Schemes such as these compromise the integrity of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ programs and services and divert funds from our nation’s deserving veterans and their families,” said Acting Special Agent in Charge Greg Wentz of the VA Office of Inspector General Southeast Field Office.
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, French worked with overseas telemarketing call centers that pressured elderly Americans to provide their personal and health insurance information and agree to accept medically unnecessary orthotic braces. In certain instances, the call centers altered call recordings to make it seem like Medicare patients agreed to the braces when they did not.
French paid sham telemedicine companies kickbacks to obtain signed doctors’ orders from doctors and nurse practitioners who never examined, and often never even spoke to, the patients. He sold the orders to marketers and medical supply companies, which then submitted claims to Medicare. French also defrauded Medicare and CHAMPVA, the health care program for spouses and children of veterans who have or had a permanent and total service-connected disability or who died from a service-connected condition, by billing the programs for orthotic braces through eight DME supply companies that he owned and managed, using straw owners and false documents to hide his connection to the companies from Medicare. French also laundered approximately $225,000 in cash from a bank in Mississippi, over $10,000 of which was placed in a bag and driven to Orlando to pay accomplices who sold him beneficiaries’ personal and insurance information.
After a six-day jury trial ending in February, French was convicted of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and conspiracy to offer, pay, solicit, and receive kickbacks.
Former NFL player sentenced to prison in $197M Medicare fraud
