Former NFL player sentenced to prison, ordered to pay $111 million in restitution in brace scheme

WASHINGTON – A former NFL player who owned a marketing company and was the beneficial owner of eight durable medical equipment (DME) companies has been 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 allegedly selling patient information and sham doctor 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, Miss., was ordered to pay nearly $111 million in restitution and to forfeit approximately $17 million that the government seized from bank accounts and other assets. 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 doctor 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. HHS-OIG, FBI, and VA OIG investigated the case.