Former NFL Player Joel French Sentenced to 16 Years for $197M Medicare Fraud Scheme
Joel French, a former NFL player and Mississippi business executive, has been sentenced to over 16 years in federal prison for orchestrating a large-scale healthcare fraud scheme. The scheme defrauded the U.S. government of nearly $200 million by targeting elderly Americans and veterans' families. French, 47, was found guilty of using overseas telemarketers, sham telemedicine companies, and straw-owned medical supply businesses to push unnecessary medical equipment onto vulnerable patients. The Justice Department announced that French was ordered to pay more than $110.7 million in restitution and forfeit approximately $17 million in assets. The fraudulent activities involved pressuring seniors into providing personal and insurance information, with telemarketers sometimes altering recordings to falsely show patient approval for equipment. French also paid kickbacks to telemedicine companies for doctors' orders signed by physicians who never examined the patients. 
