A federal jury convicted Joel Rufus French, 47, of Amory, Mississippi, the owner of a marketing company, and former NFL player, 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.
French had a brief and limited NFL career after a standout college tenure at Ole Miss.He signed as an undrafted free agent with the Seattle Seahawks in 1999. A knee injury sidelined him for the entire 2000 season, leading to his release from the team. He later signed with the Green Bay Packers in 2002 but never appeared in a regular-season game (likely on the practice squad or released without playing).
According to court documents and evidence presented at trial, French worked with overseas call centers that pressured elderly Americans to provide their personal and health insurance information and agree to accept medically unnecessary orthotic braces. Some of the individuals who agreed to the braces suffered from Alzheimer’s and dementia. 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 to obtain signed 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 durable medical equipment supply companies that he owned and managed, using false documents to hide his connection to the companies from Medicare.
The evidence at trial showed that French and his co-conspirators caused Medicare to be billed for braces for amputees for limbs they did not have and for deceased beneficiaries. Also during the conspiracy, French withdrew 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.
The jury convicted French of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and conspiracy to offer, pay, solicit, and receive kickbacks. French faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, 10 years in prison for conspiracy to commit money laundering, and five years in prison for conspiracy to defraud the United States. A federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors. A sentencing date has not been set.
“This scheme built on sham operations exploited seniors and corrupted the federal health care system. By falsifying doctors’ orders and selling patient information, the defendant sought to turn Medicare into their own personal ATM machine,” said Acting Deputy Inspector General for Investigations Scott J. Lampert of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General (HHS-OIG). “HHS-OIG will stop and catch anyone who exploits vulnerable patients to bilk federal healthcare programs and hold them accountable to the full extent of the law.”
This case was similar to Operation Brace Yourself, a major 2019 Department of Justice (DOJ) enforcement action (also called the “Telemedicine and Durable Medical Equipment Takedown”) that charged dozens of individuals across multiple states for schemes involving kickbacks, bribes, sham telemedicine consultations, and fraudulent billing to Medicare for medically unnecessary braces (like back, knee, shoulder, and wrist braces). It resulted in charges related to over $1.7 billion in false claims, with significant cost avoidance for Medicare in the following years.
HHS-OIG, FBI, and VA-OIG investigated the case. Acting Assistant Chief Catherine Wagner and Trial Attorney William Hochul III of the Justice Department’s Fraud Section are prosecuting the case.