James Biden associate Keaton Langston pleads guilty to $51M Medicare fraud
WASHINGTON — A former business associate of James Biden has agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to defraud Medicare of $51 million through a lab-testing company linked to the first brother.
Keaton Langston, 39, admitted to using pharmacies, durable medical equipment companies and a laboratory in which he had a financial interest to bill for unnecessary tests and orders, the Justice Department disclosed last week in court filings.
James Biden, 75, has not been accused of criminal wrongdoing and has sought to distance himself from Langston, whose father Joey Langston also was associated with the first brother.
Keaton Langston founded Fountain Health, a lab company, in May 2017 and offered its services to rural hospital operator Americore Health, which later went bankrupt.
Records show James Biden was involved with Fountain Health in 2017 before connecting with Americore, which provided him in $600,000 in loans in 2018 as he allegedly vowed to use his political connections to secure foreign investors.
James passed $200,000 of the funds to Joe Biden in an alleged loan repayment.
Shortly after the lab firm launched, Joey Langston emailed James Biden and his son Keaton and three others on July 12, 2017, about an upcoming “meeting for Fountain Health partners,” Politico reported in February.
“Jim will report to the group the results of his discussions earlier today with a contact at [Blue Cross Blue Shield],” the elder Langston wrote. “There will also be discussion about how to proceed with the Union contacts that have been made by Jim and Keaton, within the last two weeks.”
Paul Fishman, an attorney for James Biden, did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but previously said his client “conducted himself ethically and honorably in all his business dealings.”
Keaton Langston agreed in September to repay Americore $240,000 in a civil settlement. James Biden agreed in 2022 to repay Americore $350,000.
The Bidens and the Langstons have been linked financially for years.
The elder Langston hosted fundraisers for Joe Biden when he was a senator, ProPublica reported.
Joey Langston also loaned James Biden $800,000, with most of the installments coming toward the end of the Obama-Biden administration in 2016, and ended up only being repaid $400,000 of the amount, he told House impeachment investigators in February.
The wealthy Mississippi lawyer pleaded guilty in 2008 and was sentenced to three years in federal prison for being part of a plot to bribe a judge in an asbestos legal fees dispute.
He was seeking to overturn his conviction when he made loans to the then-vice president’s brother.
Joey Langston’s alleged co-conspirator in the bribes case, attorney Dickie Scruggs, was involved in a second prosecution for attempting to bribe a different judge.
James Biden was wiretapped by the FBI in 2007 as part of its investigation of the second bribery case, the Washington Post reported in December.
James was in talks at the time with Scruggs and conspirator Tim Balducci about setting up a law firm that would have employed himself, his nephew Hunter Biden and James’ wife Sara.
Then-Sen. Biden went from an opponent of federal legislation to sanction tobacco companies for lying about the addictiveness of cigarettes to a supporter after Scruggs — who planned a multibillion-dollar lawsuit — paid James Biden’s lobbying firm $100,000 in 1998, the Washington Post reported.
“I probably wouldn’t have hired him if he wasn’t the senator’s brother,” Scruggs told the paper.
Scruggs also flew Joe Biden to a fundraiser on his private plane, the Washington Post reported.
Joe Biden has consistently claimed he “never” discussed business with his son or brother and said in December and again in March that he “did not” interact with their partners, including foreign associates in countries where he held sway as vice president.
Evidence including photos, emails and witness statements indicate that Biden actually interacted with his son and brother’s associates from two Chinese government-linked business ventures and their patrons from Kazakhstan, Mexico, Russia and Ukraine.
James Biden was a partner with first son Hunter in many ventures and allegedly wasn’t always coy about the angle he was pushing to investors.
“We’ve got people all around the world who want to invest in Joe Biden,” James allegedly said in the early 2000s as he and Hunter were in the process of acquiring investment bank Paradigm, according to a 2021 book by Politico reporter Ben Schreckinger.
