Ex-college football star gets 16 years for $197M scheme that preyed on seniors and disabled veterans

"Today's sentence makes clear that if you target America's elderly, sick, or vulnerable - and rob America's purse doing so - you will be targeted and brought to justice."

The Department of Justice said French worked with overseas telemarketers that pressured elderly Americans to provide their health information and agree to accept unnecessary braces. The telemarketers would alter call recordings to make it sound like the patients agreed to the braces if they had not.

French paid fraudulent companies to get signed doctors' orders, despite oftentimes never interacting with the patients.

He was also ordered to pay nearly $111 million in restitution and forfeit roughly $17 million that the government seized from bank accounts.

French starred at Ole Miss and was twice a First-team All-SEC tight end - he was also a unanimous All-American in 1998.