United States of America v. Joel Rufus French

Tampa, Florida, criminal defense lawyer represented the Defendant charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States Government, mail fraud, and money laundering.

By Kent Morlan

Joel Rufus French, age 47 of Armory, Mississippi, engaged in a conspiracy to defraud of the United States.

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 doctors’ 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.

IMPRISONMENT: 60 Months, all such terms to run concurrently, SUPERVISED RELEASE: 36 Months, all such terms to run concurrently; TOTAL RESTITUTION: $110,753,619.63; SPECIAL ASSESSMENT: $100