Government Programs Fraud

February 28, 2023

Seven defendants who previously pleaded guilty to defrauding a federal program that provides technology to underprivileged schools has been sentenced to up to 4 years in prison each and ordered to pay up to $1 million each in restitution.  Four of the defendants—Peretz Klein, Susan Klein, Ben Klein, and Sholem Steinberg—misrepresented themselves and their companies as vendors to schools participating in the federal E-Rate program, receiving over $14 million in federal funds even though they failed to provide much of the equipment ordered.  Two other defendants—Simon Goldbrener and Moshe Schwartz—misrepresented themselves as consultants who helped schools participate in the E-Rate program, when in fact, they took hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes from the above vendors to circumvent the bidding process.  A final defendant, Aron Melber, was a school official who falsely certified to having obtained E-Rate-funded equipment and services through a fair and open bidding process.  USAO SDNY

February 16, 2023

Texas-based ELPSS Career Institute LLC and its director have been ordered to pay $9 million for violating the Post-9/11 GI Bill and False Claims Act.  Under the Post-9/11 GI Bill, the school was required to operate for at least two years before enrolling students receiving benefits.  ELPSS, however, did so less than a year after applying for approval, falsely certified to its compliance with all requirements, and as a result, received more than $2.3 million in reimbursements it was not entitled to.  USAO WDTX

February 10, 2023

A public organization working on behalf of the City of Detroit and the Detroit Building Authority has agreed to pay the federal government $1.5 million to resolve allegations of violating the False Claims Act.  In connection with a project to demolish blighted properties in the city, the Detroit Land Bank Authority (“DLBA”) allegedly paid demolition contractors for six years’ worth of unsubstantiated backfill dirt costs using funds from the Hardest Hit Fund, which is funded by the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program.  USAO EDMI

October 13, 2022

Wisconsin-based public relations firm BVK, Inc. has agreed to pay $2.25 million to settle claims that it was ineligible for a second-draw loan that it received under the Paycheck Protection Program.  The second-draw loans had additional eligibility requirements from the first-draw loans, including a requirement that organizations that performed certain work on behalf of foreign governments were not allowed to receive a second-draw loan.  According to a whistleblower, at the time it applied for the second-draw loan, BVK was allegedly performing work on behalf of the government of the Dominican Republic and was thus ineligible for the loan it ultimately received.  USAO EDWI

September 22, 2022

The operations manager for Zieson Construction Company has been sentenced to 8 years in prison, ordered to forfeit over $4.6 million in profits, and ordered to pay restitution of over $600,000 to the IRS and over $82,000 to the Missouri Department of Revenue for his role in a massive fraud scheme.  Using an African American service-disabled veteran as the nominal owner of Zieson, Patrick Michael Dingle obtained approximately $335 million in federal construction contracts that were set aside for small businesses owned and operated by individuals fitting the nominal owner’s profile.  In violation of program rules, however, Zieson was actually controlled by Dingle and his co-conspirators.  Dingle also separately admitted to filing fraudulent business tax returns from 2013 to 2016.  USAO WDMO

August 3, 2022

William Richard “Rick” Carter, Jr. will spend 66 months in prison and pay over $1.3 million in restitution for his scheme to defraud the Alabama State Department of Education, in a conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft. Carter and his co-conspirators fraudulently enrolled students in public virtual schools to receive payments from Alabama’s Education Trust Fund, and then took portions of the money for their own use through direct cash payments and payments to third-party contractors owned by the various co-conspirators—William L. (“Trey”) Holladay, III, Gregory (“Greg”) Earl Corkren, David Webb Tutt, and Thomas Michael Sisk.  USAO MDAL

August 2, 2022

Denver Public Schools paid over $2.1 million to resolve a False Claims Act investigation into its misuse of AmeriCorps funds. AmeriCorps funds are used to address critical community needs such as fighting poverty, mentoring youth, and increasing academic achievement. To that end, AmeriCorps provides education awards to their volunteers a/k/a “members” for performing a specified number of service hours in these communities. DPS recruited their existing employees for AmeriCorps programs and double-counted hours spent on their employment duties as being on service, which is disallowed as it deprives the students of the net benefit of the additional support they would have received from non-DPS-employed AmeriCorps members. USAO CO