French, U.S. evacuees from cruise ship test positive

A former NFL tight end was sentenced to 196 months in prison for a fraud scheme that cost Medicare and the Department of Veterans Affairs nearly $200 million, according to a May 8 Justice Department release.

Joel Rufus French, of Armory, Mississippi, owned a marketing company and was the beneficial owner of eight durable medical equipment companies, the release said. Prosecutors said he sold patient information and doctors’ orders for medically unnecessary orthotic braces.

According to the release, French worked with overseas telemarketing call centers that pressured older Americans to share personal and health insurance information and agree to receive braces they did not need or want. He then paid telemedicine companies to obtain signed doctors’ orders from doctors and nurse practitioners who had not examined, and sometimes had not spoken to, the patients, the Justice Department said.

French then sold the orders to marketers and medical supply companies that submitted Medicare claims, according to the release. The department said he also billed Medicare and the VA’s Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs, known as CHAMPVA, through durable medical equipment companies he owned and managed.

Prosecutors said French hid his connection to those companies from Medicare by using false documents and straw owners.

“Fueled by lies, bribes, and overseas telemarketers, this corrupt scheme preyed on senior citizens and disabled veterans to flood the country with unnecessary medical devices — and then billed the taxpayer for it,” Justice Department National Fraud Enforcement Division Assistant Attorney General Colin M. McDonald said in the release.

French also laundered about $225,000 in cash from a Mississippi bank, the release said. It said he drove to Orlando, Florida, with more than $10,000 of that money to pay accomplices who sold him beneficiaries’ personal and insurance information.

The Justice Department said French was convicted of conspiracy to commit health care fraud and wire fraud; conspiracy to commit money laundering; and conspiracy to offer, pay, solicit, and receive kickbacks.

French was a unanimous All-American at Mississippi in 1998. He signed with the Seattle Seahawks after going undrafted in 1999 and was released in 2001 after missing the previous season with an injury. He later signed with the Green Bay Packers and was waived before the 2002 season.

U.S. Customs and Border Protection deported 27 cruise ship workers after determining they were involved in child sexual abuse material, the agency said Monday.

The agency said it boarded eight cruise ships docked in San Diego from April 23-27 as part of an ongoing investigation into child sexual exploitation material. Customs and Border Protection told Fox News Digital it detained 28 employees and found that 27 of them “were involved in either the receipt, possession, transportation, distribution, or viewing of CSEM or child pornography.”

Customs and Border Protection canceled visas for 27 people, 26 of whom were from the Philippines, and deported them to their home countries.

The expected economic boost from the World Cup has not yet reached many U.S. hotels.

Room bookings were lighter than expected in most of the 11 U.S. cities hosting matches, according to an April survey by the American Hotel & Lodging Association.

In Kansas City, Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Seattle, a majority of hotel operators said bookings were running behind typical seasonal demand. In New York City, Los Angeles, Dallas, and Houston, demand was flat compared with a regular spring and summer, the association said.

The group cited international travel concerns, worries about U.S. visa wait times, and the cost of attending the tournament, including ticket prices and transit costs in some cities, as factors in the weaker demand.

Similar concerns extended to Mexico, which is co-hosting the tournament with the U.S. and Canada. Hotels in Mexico City, which will host the opening match on June 11, were about 30% to 36% booked, according to the Asociación de Hoteles de Ciudad de México.

Near MetLife Stadium in New Jersey, for example, one hotel that normally charged about $200 a night was advertising rooms for $800 on nights around June World Cup matches. Rates rose to more than $1,300 a night ahead of the July 19 final.

The Trump administration was processing more than $35.5 billion in tariff refunds to importers after the U.S. Supreme Court found the tariffs unlawful, according to a court filing.

Customs and Border Protection said the payments were being processed through a new online portal and would include interest on duties paid across more than 8 million import entries. Brandon Lord, executive director of trade programs for the agency’s Office of Trade, said the portal had validated nearly 87,000 of the 126,000 declarations received as of May 11.

Those claims were tied to $166 billion in duties that were overturned after the Supreme Court ruled on Feb. 20 that President Donald Trump had unlawfully used the International Emergency Economic Powers Act to impose tariffs on imports. The court’s 6-3 decision did not address refunds, leaving lower courts to decide that issue.

So far, more than 8.3 million accepted entries had been reprocessed to remove those duties, the filing said. It also said 1,880 consolidated refunds had not yet been sent to the Treasury Department because the importers had not provided bank account information.