Former NFL player Joel Rufus French was sentenced to 16 years in prison after a federal jury found he ran a long-running scheme that sold patient data and bogus doctors’ orders to bill Medicare and CHAMPVA for nearly $200 million in unnecessary orthotic braces.
A federal judge handed Joel Rufus French, 47, of Armory, Mississippi, a 16-year prison term and ordered him to pay $110,753,619 in restitution and forfeit about $17 million seized from bank accounts and other assets. The case centers on a sprawling fraud that involved eight durable medical equipment companies tied to French and a network of marketers and telemarketers who pushed unneeded braces onto vulnerable patients.
The scheme relied on selling beneficiaries’ personal and insurance information and on producing sham doctors’ orders for orthotic braces that patients did not want or need. Prosecutors say overseas telemarketing centers pressured elderly Americans, altered recordings to manufacture consent, and arranged kickbacks that turned medical records into commodity transactions aimed at federal health programs.
“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,” said Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald of the Justice Department’s National Fraud Enforcement Division. That blunt description framed the government’s case and underscored why prosecutors pushed for a heavy sentence.
Evidence introduced at trial showed call centers coaxed or coerced patients into agreeing to braces and in some cases manipulated call files to make it seem like consent was given. The operation moved patient details and fake orders through a chain of sham telemedicine companies and marketers until claims reached Medicare and CHAMPVA, the veterans’ family health program that covers spouses and children of veterans with service-connected disabilities or deaths.
“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 J. Lampert of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (HHS‑OIG). HHS‑OIG investigators helped trace how orders, payments, and shell ownership kept French’s involvement hidden.
Prosecutors say French paid sham telemedicine providers for signed orders from doctors and nurse practitioners who never examined the patients, then sold those orders to marketers and supply companies that billed Medicare. He routed claims through eight DME suppliers he controlled via straw owners and false paperwork, and laundered cash in multiple transactions, including roughly $225,000 from a Mississippi bank and more than $10,000 driven in a bag to Orlando to pay accomplices who sold beneficiary data.
“Schemes such as these compromise the integrity of the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) 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 (VA OIG) Southeast Field Office. That statement reflects the broader damage investigators say fraud like this inflicts on both taxpayers and the people the programs were designed to protect.
A six-day jury trial that ended in February returned guilty verdicts on counts including 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, the FBI, and VA OIG led the investigation, and the case was prosecuted by Acting Assistant Chief Catherine Wagner and Trial Attorney William Hochul III of the Criminal Division’s Fraud Section.
On April 7, the Department of Justice announced the creation of the Fraud Division to sharpen the government’s effort against schemes like this, part of a broader push tied to President Trump’s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, chaired by Vice President J.D. Vance. The DOJ’s Health Care Fraud Strike Force effort has charged more than 6,200 defendants who collectively billed federal health care programs and private insurers more than $45 billion since 2007, and federal agencies continue to coordinate to identify and stop sophisticated fraud networks.
