Former NFL tight end convicted for Medicare, VA fraud scheme

A former NFL tight end was sentenced to more than 16 years in prison for a yearslong fraud scheme that cost Medicare and the U.S. Veterans Affairs almost $200 million.

Joel Rufus French, a marketing company owner and beneficial owner of eight durable medical equipment companies, sold patient information and fake doctors’ orders for medically unnecessary orthotic braces, according to a May 8 Department of Justice release.

“Fueled by lies, bribes, and overseas telemarketers, this corrupt scheme preyed on senior citizens and disabled veterans to flood the country with unnecessary medical devices — and then billed the taxpayer for it,” Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald said in the release.

French collaborated with overseas telemarketing call centers that pressured elderly Americans into sharing their personal and health insurance information and to accepting orthotic braces they did not need or want, the release states.

He then paid sham telemedicine companies illegally to acquire signed doctors’ orders from doctors and nurse practitioners who never examined — or sometimes never spoke to — the patients, according to the statement.

Following that, French sold the doctors’ orders to marketers and medical supply companies, who then submitted Medicare claims.

The former football player also defrauded Medicare and the VA’s Civilian Health and Medical Program, a health care program offered by the department for spouses or children of veterans who meet certain service-related disability requirements, the release states.

French defrauded the programs by billing them for orthotic braces through the DME supply companies that he owned and managed, the statement says.

He hid his association with the companies from Medicare through false documents and straw owners, meaning someone who appears to be the legitimate owner when the true owner can’t legally or wishes to remain anonymous.

“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,” Acting Deputy Inspector General for Investigations Scott J. Lampert of the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General said in the release.

“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,” he continued.

French, a resident of Armory, Mississippi, also laundered around $225,000 in cash from a Mississippi bank. The statement says he drove to Orlando, Florida, with over $10,000 of that cash to pay accomplices who sold him beneficiaries’ personal and insurance information.

On top of the 196 months in prison, he is also required to pay over $110 million in restitution and to forfeit roughly $17 million that the government seized from bank accounts and other assets, per the release.

The release says that French is 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.

French was a unamimous All-American in 1998 while playing for the Ole Miss Rebels. He went undrafted in the 1999 NFL Draft but signed with the Seattle Seahawks until he was released from the team in 2001 after sitting the previous season out due to an injury.

He later signed with the Green Bay Packers but was waived before the 2002 season.