A Mississippi man has been charged by the Department of Justice with multiple crimes related to the $70 million Medicare fraud.
An indictment was unsealed last week in Tampa against Joel Rufus French, 46, who appeared when summoned to Oxford, Mississippi. The FBI Tampa Field Office and HHS-OIG are investigating the case.
Man accused of multi-million dollar fraud
The French allegedly used bribes to obtain orders from doctors to obtain unnecessary quantities of durable medical equipment (DME). The accused had also created a network of conspirators who received bribes and kickbacks in an elaborate scheme involving the use of orthotic braces.
Initial court documents highlighted that French failed to disclose to Medicare his status or role while managing multiple DME companies. French then allegedly used the fraudulently obtained doctors’ orders to bill Medicare for reimbursement in the amount of $70 million.
The Justice Department release said the charges against French include “conspiracy to defraud the United States and pay and receive illegal kickbacks for health care, conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit money laundering.”
The Department of Justice’s Health Care Fraud Strike Force program consists of “nine strike forces operating in 27 federal districts, has charged more than 5,400 defendants who collectively billed federal health programs and private insurers more than 27 billions of dollars”.
If French were convicted of these crimes, he could face maximum sentences of twenty and five years, respectively, for each of the charges brought against him.
This would be one of three medical fraud cases recorded by the Department of Justice this week. A New Jersey doctor was convicted of illegally distributing oxycodone, and two other doctors were convicted for their roles in a fraudulent drug testing scheme.
Image: ideogram.
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