Inside the Alleged Operation
An indictment filed in June 2024 alleged that French, a resident of Amory, Mississippi, worked with others to target beneficiaries of federal health care programs such as Medicare. The aim: secure doctors’ orders for reusable medical equipment including knee braces, back braces and other orthotic devices.
The DOJ said that over several years, French partnered with overseas call centers that pressured elderly Americans — including those with Alzheimer’s and dementia — to hand over personal and insurance information and agree to receive braces they did not need.
Prosecutors said French paid sham telemedicine companies to obtain brace prescriptions from doctors and nurse practitioners who neither examined nor spoke with patients. Those orders were then sold to marketing and medical supply companies, which submitted reimbursement claims to Medicare.
Web of Companies and Cash
French allegedly used eight medical equipment supply companies he owned and managed to bill Medicare and the veterans’ health program. To conceal his involvement, he relied on false documents to mask his ties to those companies, the DOJ said.
Authorities also pointed to financial transactions during the conspiracy. French withdrew roughly $225,000 in cash from a Mississippi bank, prosecutors said. More than $10,000 of that sum was placed in a bag and transported to Orlando, Florida, to pay accomplices who supplied personal and insurance data.
