Sorry, I missed this:
Well, "le" is an indirect object pronoun meaning him, her, or you (formal, singular). In the sentence I posted, it referred to Jones.
Jones, then, is identified both explicitly and with a pronoun (for the same verb)—a rather odd concept. Literally, the sentence means "Him [I] wrote to Jones," him being Jones. Frustratingly enough, Spanish won't allow you to just specify the indirect object while omitting the corresponding pronoun.
Does French have a similar rule?
Strictly speaking, no. You wouldn't say "I wrote him Jones" in proper French.
However, in substandard oral French, it is somewhat common to use a third person pronoun and to follow it with the corresponding noun in order to clarify. For example, you might start saying, "I wrote him a letter" and decide in mid-sentence that to need to clarify "him," in which case you would say "I wrote him a letter, [to] Jones" (« Je lui ai écrit une lettre, à Jones »).
This practice applies to all third person pronouns. If you wanted to say that Jones came to your house (Jones would be the subject in this case), you might say, "He came to my house, Jones" (« Il est venu chez moi, Jones »). Again, though, this is substandard French.
