The Ex-NFL Player’s $197 Million Brace Empire

Joel Rufus French secretly ran eight equipment companies that billed Medicare and VA’s CHAMPVA $197M for braces patients didn’t need — including braces for amputees’ missing limbs. He got 196 months.

French owned a marketing company and was the beneficial owner of eight durable medical equipment companies, using straw owners and false documents to hide his control of them.

Overseas telemarketing call centers pressured elderly Americans for their insurance information and, in some instances, altered call recordings to fake patients’ agreement to receive braces. French paid sham telemedicine companies kickbacks for doctors’ orders signed by practitioners who never examined — and often never spoke to — the patients.

Trial evidence showed the operation billed for braces on amputees’ missing limbs and for beneficiaries who were already dead. He also laundered about $225,000 in cash, over $10,000 of which was bagged and driven to Orlando to pay for beneficiaries’ personal data. A federal jury convicted him after a six-day trial.

"Fueled by lies, bribes, and overseas telemarketers, this corrupt scheme preyed on senior citizens and disabled veterans"
— U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs

Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs. Case file in the VA Fraud case files — part of the VA Fraud record. Cases are published as the courts decided them; amounts are stated as the Justice Department states them (billed, stolen, or ordered in restitution, as labeled).