A federal jury in the Middle District of Florida convicted a former NFL player from Mississippi of participating in a Medicare fraud scheme.
According to authorities, the years-long conspiracy defrauded Medicare and the Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs (CHAMPVA) of nearly $200 million by selling patient information and forged doctor’s orders for orthotic braces that patients did not desire or want.
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According to court records, Joel Rufus French, 47, of Amory, Mississippi, coordinated with offshore call centers to coerce elderly Americans into providing personal and health insurance information and agreeing to receive medically inappropriate orthotic braces. Some of the people suffered from Alzheimer’s and dementia. In several cases, authorities allege that contact centers manipulated call recordings to make it appear like Medicare patients agreed to the braces when they did not.
The French paid sham telemedicine companies to obtain signed orders from doctors and nurse practitioners who never examined or communicated with the patients. He sold the orders to marketers and medical supply firms, which consequently filed claims with Medicare.
Prosecutors said 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 as a result of 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 conceal his relationship with the companies from Medicare.
The evidence presented at trial revealed that French and his co-conspirators billed Medicare for braces for amputees with missing limbs as well as for deceased patients. During the scheme, French also withdrew $225,000 in cash from a Mississippi bank, with more than $10,000 stashed in a suitcase and transported to Orlando to pay accomplices who sold him recipients’ personal and insurance information.
The jury found French guilty 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 potential sentence of 20 years in prison for conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, ten years for conspiracy to commit money laundering, and five years for conspiracy to defraud the US. A sentencing date has not been determined.
