POLITICO EXCLUSIVE
DOJ: Jim Biden associate conspired with alleged mafia boss to defraud Medicare
A new filing accuses Keaton Langston of participating in Medicare fraud alongside an alleged ‘consigliere’ to the Colombo crime family.
By BEN SCHRECKINGER, 03/18/2024, politico.com
Prosecutors said a business associate of Jim Biden conspired to defraud Medicare alongside an alleged leader of the Colombo crime family in a brief filed Friday in federal court in New Jersey.
The government’s accusation is likely to intensify scrutiny of the ties between President Joe Biden’s brother and the associate, Mississippi businessman Keaton Langston.
The Justice Department named Langston as a co-conspirator in the ongoing fraud case just three weeks after congressional investigators grilled Jim Biden about his relationship with the Mississippi businessman. In the course of a previous prosecution, the Justice Department identified a defendant in the fraud case, Florida businessman Thomas Farese, as a high-ranking member of the Colombo crime family, according to court filings.
Last month, POLITICO reported that Jim Biden had accompanied Langston, the son of a longtime friend, at a May 2017 meeting at which they pitched the services of Langston’s medical lab testing business to a hospital chain. The hospital chain, Americore, has become a focus of the impeachment inquiry led by House Republicans that is probing potential links between the president and his relatives’ business dealings.
A spokesperson for Jim Biden, Brian McDonough, did not respond to a request for comment. Though the government has identified Langston as a co-conspirator, he has not been named as a defendant in the case. He did not respond to requests for comment made to a phone number believed to belong to him. Attorney Casey Langston Lott, a cousin of Langston’s who has represented Langston at times, said he was not in a position to comment and did not respond to a follow-up request for help contacting Langston directly.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Joe Biden has said he never discussed his relatives’ business dealings.
POLITICO’s investigation found that Jim Biden leveraged his brother’s name to promote Americore and that his involvement with the hospital chain began with the May 2017 meeting, which also included Langston’s father, Joey Langston.
POLITICO also obtained emails from Joey Langston to Jim Biden, Keaton Langston and others related to the planning of partners’ meetings of the lab services business, Fountain Health.
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politico.com excerpt
POLITICO’s investigation found that Jim Biden leveraged his brother’s name to promote Americore and that his involvement with the hospital chain began with the May 2017 meeting, which also included Langston’s father, Joey Langston.
POLITICO also obtained emails from Joey Langston to Jim Biden, Keaton Langston and others related to the planning of partners’ meetings of the lab services business, Fountain Health.
In a prepared statement delivered last month to impeachment inquiry investigators, Jim Biden described a summer 2017 breakfast meeting in Florida with Keaton Langston, Joey Langston and Americore’s CEO in which he learned about Americore’s business model.
But in his interview with the congressional investigators, Jim Biden distanced himself from Keaton Langston. He said he had no role in Fountain Health and was not involved in any companies with Keaton Langston, according to a publicly released transcript.
In the interview, Jim Biden also testified about his relationship with Joey Langston. He described the elder Langston — a disbarred trial lawyer who pleaded guilty in 2008 to conspiring to bribe a judge — as a close friend and fielded questions about their financial ties.
Investigators said Joey Langston — who sat for his own impeachment inquiry interview last month — testified that he loaned Jim Biden roughly $800,000 and received roughly $400,000 back, according to the transcript. A lawyer for Jim Biden, Paul Fishman, told investigators those figures are “not inconsistent with what we believe,” according to the transcript.
Following their initial contacts with Americore, both Keaton Langston — who is listed as the sole member of a Fountain Health, LLC in Mississippi’s corporate registry — and Jim Biden went on to work with the company, which at its height operated a handful of hospitals across the eastern half of the United States.
Jim Biden helped Americore gain regulatory approval to acquire a hospital in Pennsylvania and worked to raise money for it from overseas investors (intimating he was using his brother Joe’s political contacts).
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Joe Biden has said he never discussed his relatives’ business dealings.
Sounds like Joe’s going to be pardoning the mob.