AG Report: Pentagon gave $876.8 million in contracts to ineligible contractors meant for disabled veteran owned businesses!

ARE YOU OK WITH THIS? THEN DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! FORCE THE SENATE TO DO THEIR JOBS OR REMEMBER WHAT THEY REFUSED TO DO WHEN YOU DECIDE TO VOTE!

Pentagon Awarded $876M in Contracts Meant for Disabled Vets to Ineligible Companies: IG

Military.com
By Richard Sisk
20 Feb 2020

The report also cited the case of "Contractor B," who had received three SDVOSB contracts worth $209.6 million. "However, we determined that evidence did not exist to support that a service-disabled veteran was the majority owner and highest ranking officer or in control of the company," the IG's report said.

This March 27, 2008, file photo, shows the Pentagon in Washington. (AP Photo/Charles Dharapak)

Small businesses owned or run by disabled veterans may have been cheated out of hundreds of millions of dollars in Defense Department contracts by unscrupulous firms who were ineligible for the awards, the Pentagon's Inspector General reported Thursday.

The IG's audit found that the DoD "awarded $876.8 million in contracts to ineligible contractors and did not implement procedures to ensure compliance with the Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Business (SDVOSB) subcontracting requirements after the contracts were awarded."

At least 16 of the 29 contractors reviewed in the report who received business from the DoD on the basis that they met the disabled veteran requirements were found to be ineligible, the IG's office said.

Unless the DoD conducts better oversight, "service-disabled veterans may be in jeopardy of not receiving contract awards intended for them, and the DoD will be at risk of misreporting the amounts for SDVOSB participation," the 29-page report states.
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Columbus veteran admits to Stolen Valor...for PTSD VA Comp and Job

VA paid Columbus veteran $76,000 for PTSD from war events. He admits he made it up.

Ledger Examiner
BY NICK WOOTEN
DECEMBER 06, 2019

“Faking serious wartime injuries to gain undeserved benefit, and claiming valor where there is none, do a disservice to our brave veterans and service members who selflessly risk their lives protecting this country,” said U.S. Attorney Charlie Peeler in a statement.

A Columbus military veteran accused of stolen valor and lying about a combat-induced mental health condition to receive disability payments pleaded guilty to multiple charges in federal court.

Gregg Ramsdell, 61, entered a guilty plea to one count of false statements and one count of violation of the Stolen Valor Act. Ramsdell was indicted on those charges in August.

The Stolen Valor Act makes it illegal for people to claim to be war heroes in order to gain money, employment, property or other tangible benefits, according to court documents and a news release from the United States Attorney’s office for the Middle District of Georgia.
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$346 million for contracts set aside for veterans and minorities went to fraud?

McPherson Contractors owner pleads guilty in $346M fraud scheme

Topeka Capital Journal
By Tim Hrenchir
Posted Jun 3, 2019

The owner of Topeka-based McPherson Contractors pleaded guilty Monday to a federal crime linked to a scheme in which prosecutors said construction firms defrauded the government by receiving $346 million for contracts set aside for veterans and minorities.

Matthew C. McPherson, 43, is subject to a sentence of up to five years in federal prison without parole after he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and major program fraud, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri.

The release indicated McPherson admitted in his plea that he took part between September 2009 and March 2018 in a conspiracy to obtain contracts set aside by the federal government to be awarded specifically to small businesses owned and controlled by military veterans, service-disabled veterans and certified minors.

McPherson, who is none of those, owned a construction company that was not entitled to compete for those contracts, the release said. The type of scheme involved is often called “Rent-A-Vet” or “Rent-A-Minority” fraud.

Authorities said McPherson and his co-conspirators — Matthew Torgeson, former president of Topeka’s Torgeson Electric Co., and Kansas City-area businessman Patrick Michael Dingle — controlled and operated Zieson Construction Co. That firm was formed in 2009 with Stephon Ziegler, an African American disabled veteran, as the nominal owner.
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Fort Drum Sergeant Admitted Filing False Tax Returns

Former Fort Drum sergeant sentenced for filing false tax returns for fellow soldiers

By GORDON BLOCK
GBLOCK@WDT.NET

PUBLISHED: TUESDAY, APRIL 4, 2017

A former Fort Drum sergeant was sentenced to 12 months in prison after he admitted to filing false tax returns for his fellow soldiers to defraud the government of more than $100,000 and line his own pockets.

Bobby Lemon, 36, of McRae, Ga., admitted to inputting false information on soldiers’ tax paperwork, changing their filing status and adding dependents to generate larger refunds. In many cases, the listed dependents were members of his own family.

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A Fallen Soldier's Parents Help Bust An Impostor

A Fallen Soldier's Parents Help Bust An Impostor - Stolen Valor Series.

Parents of Ryan Clark helped uncover the fraud.

After Getting Free Wedding Discovery: Iraq Veteran Lied About Being Wounded

Video for Iraq War Vet Who Got Free Wedding Allegedly Lied About Combat Injuries
ABC News 8

Wedding venue owner Tara Nealy says she feels “completely violated” after learning William Colvard allegedly lied about getting injured by a roadside bomb in 2008.


ABC Latest News | Latest News Videos

Filmmakers Convicted of Fraud Took Advantage of Wounded Marines

Filmmakers convicted of defrauding government with school to teach wounded Marines
LA Times
By TONY PERRY
July 10, 2015

Court documents put the alleged
fraud from the VA at up to $1.2 million.

A longtime filmmaker-cinematographer and his wife were convicted Friday of defrauding the federal government of several hundred thousand dollars while running a program billed as preparing wounded Marines for jobs in the film industry.

A federal court jury in San Diego convicted Kevin Lombard and Judith Paixao, both 61, of conspiracy to commit fraud, theft from an organization receiving federal funds, and filing false claims. Paixao was also convicted of mail fraud involving the Bob Woodruff Foundation.

Prosecutors said the pair fraudulently billed the Department of Veterans Affairs for personal expenses, including cellphone bills for relatives, a Caribbean vacation, meals in fancy restaurants, and a New Year's Day sailing outing around San Diego Bay.

The VA was charged up to $88,000 per veteran for the 10-week course, according to evidence presented at trial.

The pair "capitalized on the misfortune of wounded Marines in their time of vulnerability and took advantage of the VA's commitment to serving wounded veterans," said U.S. Atty. Laura Duffy.
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Agents treated disabled veteran like drug smuggler?

Did agents go too far by setting up sham fishing trip, posing as rehab therapist to catch accused fraudster?
The Oregonian/OregonLive
By Bryan Denson
January 10, 2015

A federal judge in Portland chided government agents Friday for running a series of elaborate ruses to catch a U.S. mail carrier they accuse of fraudulently obtaining workers' compensation benefits.

Agents went so far as to set up a phony business to lure their target – 41-year-old Brian W. Hendricks – into a 7 ½ -hour deep-sea fishing expedition. They also duped him into an interview with an undercover agent posing as a vocational rehabilitation specialist.

Throughout the investigation, agents of the U.S. Postal Service's Office of Inspector General secretly videotaped Hendricks, a former Marine sergeant who served in the Middle East. Much of that surveillance came from a camera mounted on a utility pole outside his Vancouver home.

Senior U.S. District Judge Robert E. Jones, hearing arguments over the constitutionality of the government's evidence gathering, said the amount of electronic eavesdropping devoted to Hendricks was more befitting a large-scale drug ring than a suspected workers' compensation fraud.

Hendricks' lawyer, Assistant Federal Public Defender C. Renee Manes, contends in a court filing that the government greatly exaggerated her client's activity during the deep-sea excursion.

"The reality is that Mr. Hendricks' participation in the fishing trip was far from 'able bodied,'" Manes wrote. In fact, she noted, a deckhand interviewed by the defense team confirmed that Hendricks spent most of the excursion in the cabin complaining of back pains and spasms so severe he threw up. Hendricks caught one fish.

Jones pointed out in court that the fish, a cod weighing no more than 5 pounds, scarcely offered the fight of a large salmon.
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Iraq veteran committed suicide, Dad accused of using death as rip off

Father of Iraq veteran who committed suicide accused of defrauding donors
Oregon Live
By Michael Bamesberger
May 13, 2014

In this 2011 photo, Mike and Maria Brennan visit Matt's grave with his younger brother and sisters, from left, Aiden, 5, Isabella, 1, Ariel, 7 (back to camera), Christina, 9 (standing with her mother), and Sophia, 3 (back to camera). (Beth Nakamura / The Oregonian)

A Happy Valley man was arrested on Tuesday and accused of committing food stamp fraud, defrauding his disabled father-in-law and accepting charitable donations for a non-existent non-profit organization.

Authorities believe Michael Andrew Brennan, 50, was accepting donations online for what he called the "Matthew M. Brennan Foundation," a non-profit founded in honor of his late son, an Oregon National Guard veteran who committed suicide in 2011. Brennan claimed the donations would benefit soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder, but authorities allege the money went into his personal bank account.

"Our goal is to educate, raise awareness, be an advocate and help advance and establish much needed solutions" to post-tramautic stress disorder, stated an entry on the "Saving American's Heroes" website, run by Brennan and his wife Maria.

Investigators have not found evidence that any funds donated through the website went toward the stated mission, according to the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office.

Brennan is also accused of stealing from his 65-year-old paraplegic father-in-law's bank account and using the money for personal purchases, including a Happy Valley home.
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Fort Hood ex-doctor charged with fraud

Former Fort Hood doctor charged in $7.3M fraud case
Killeen Daily Herald
Herald staff and wire reports
February 7, 2014

EL PASO — An ex-Army doctor who worked at Fort Hood was indicted in a $7.3 million health care scam. The 65-count federal indictment announced Thursday in El Paso names Dr. Richard Craig Rooney of Medina, Wash., who worked at William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso and Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center at Fort Hood.

His wife, Dr. Angie Unchi Song, and her father, Charlie Takhyun Song of Grapeview, Wash., were indicted, as was her company, Spondylos Consulting LLC. Also indicted were Julia Lynn Eller of Allure Spine LLC in Charlotte, N.C., and that company. The counts include conspiracy to commit wire fraud and money laundering. Eller allegedly provided cash so Rooney would use Allure Spine products.

According to court documents, Rooney was stationed at Fort Hood as an orthopedic surgeon from September 2002 to October 2005. Those documents reveal Darnall paid at least $769,020 to spinal implant company Altiva, at which Eller was vice president of operations from March 2005 to July 2005.
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Founded of Ruck for Warriors faces service and fraud claims

Michael Lattea, Founder Of Ruck For Warriors, Lies About Service And Commits Fraud
Guardian of Valor
bulldog1
December 27, 2013

We have been getting emails for a while about the legitimacy of the organization called “Ruck For Warriors”. People were concerned that donations they were giving, and money being spent on items they were selling, not being sent to any Veterans organizations.

Well the owner of Ruck For Warriors, Michael lattea, claimed he was a SSG who served two tours in Iraq. He also sported a CIB(Combat Infantryman’s Badge) with one star, meaning he had to have also seen combat somewhere other than Iraq/Afghanistan to earn his second CIB. He is also claiming Airborne and Air assault as well.

Some of you may have seen him and his Organization in some news articles, where they were covering his ruck’s. Below are some, where he has also been claiming two combat deployments to Iraq.
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This was also on the site

28 Years Prison For Navy Veteran Fraud

28 Years Prison For Navy Veteran Fraud
Associated Press
December 16, 2013

CLEVELAND (AP) A judge handed down a 28-year prison sentence Monday to a man convicted of masterminding a $100 million, cross-country Navy veterans charity fraud.

Judge Steven Gall also ordered the defendant, who identifies himself as 67-year-old Bobby Thompson, to pay a $6 million fine. Authorities say the defendant is Harvard-trained attorney John Donald Cody.

The Ohio attorney general's office, which handled his trial, asked the judge in a filing last week to sentence him to 41 years in prison.

The judge rejected a request for a new trial. The defense had said comments by jurors after the verdict that they were disappointed he hadn't testified showed they were biased against him.

The defendant, whose appearance in court Monday was neat in contrast to the final days of his trial, slumped in his chair as the sentence was read. He complained to the judge about alleged abusive treatment by jailers while locked up during the trial.

There was no immediate response from the sheriff's department. Jailers said earlier that the defendant had acted erratically and had bloodied his forehead smashing it against a holding cell wall.

The judge said the crimes had harmed veterans who were the intended beneficiaries of the donations and also had hurt other charities as donors became skeptical of giving.
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Judge orders public shame for fraud defendants

Judge orders shame for fraud defendants
By Guillermo Contreras
San Antonio Express-News
Published: June 29, 2013

SAN ANTONIO — In what he noted might not be legal, a federal judge on Friday ordered a very public shaming for two former officials of a now defunct contractor for their roles in overcharging taxpayers more than $6.4 million between 2002 and 2008.

Chief U.S. District Judge Fred Biery sentenced Donald Dean Brewer and his wife, Sherri Lynn Brewer, both 64, to a lifetime of probation and ordered them to publish an admission to their crimes in their hometown newspaper.

The former San Antonio residents retired to Clovis, a small town in southeastern New Mexico, and faced six to 10 years in federal prison.

“There has not been a full and forthcoming acceptance of responsibility,” Biery said. “There's been minimization. You are going to write a letter to be published in the Clovis newspaper. ...It better be a real strong confessional. It better say, 'I am a liar. I am a thief. I betrayed my friends. I betrayed the United States.'”
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Soldier deployed to Afghanistan charged with unemployment fraud

Soldier deployed to Afghanistan charged with unemployment fraud
May. 3, 2013
Associated Press

OAKLAND, CALIF. — A former Bay Area Rapid Transit police officer fired for escalating a confrontation with passengers that led to the slaying of an unarmed man has been charged with unemployment fraud.

Anthony Pirone is accused of collecting unemployment checks from the state for about seven months despite having a job, according to the Oakland Tribune. Pirone is serving in Afghanistan with the Army. His criminal case has been delayed until next year.
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Real Marine admits to not really being wounded or even deployed

UPDATE
Ex-Marine pleas guilty

This is infuriating! With so many real combat injured veterans suffering and waiting for help, this faker pulled off a stunt getting what others deserved but may never find.

When a faker ends up swindling the goodwill and funds of others, they tend to think twice about helping anyone else ever again.

Former Marine admits to making up brain injury to defraud charities
Dallas Morning News
By Kevin Krause
February 19, 2013

Michael Campbell, a former U.S. Marine who touched many people with his story of living with a combat-related brain injury, has admitted to making the whole thing up to defraud charities, according to federal court documents.

Campbell, 30, who lived in McKinney as recently as 2010, has agreed to plead guilty to one count of mail fraud, although a judge has yet to approve it. If that happens, he could face up to 20 years in prison.

Campbell served in the Marine Corps from 2000 to 2004 but never left the U.S. and was never injured in combat.

But he began telling people he was a combat veteran who suffered a traumatic brain injury while serving in Iraq as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He described how he and his unit were on patrol in Fallujah, Iraq, when an improvised explosive device went off.

He said members of his unit died in the explosion “and that he awoke from his serious injuries months later stateside at Walter Reed Army Hospital,” court documents state.

Campbell also told people he couldn’t speak and that when his speech returned, he stuttered. He also claimed to have short-term memory loss from this brain injury.

He concocted the story to “get financial help to obtain his dream of playing golf on the PGA Tour,” documents state. He told people one of his doctors suggested he take up golf to help with his rehabilitation. He created a website and used a promotional video as part of his scheme.
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70 year old "fake disabled veteran" gets 7 years for fraud

Fake war hero gets 7-year sentence for fraud
The Associated Press
Posted : Monday Nov 5, 2012
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — A western Missouri man who lied about being a disabled war hero to get federal contracts has been sentenced to prison in Kansas.

The U.S. Attorney’s office says 70-year-old Warren Parker, of Blue Springs, Mo., was sentenced Monday to slightly more than seven years.
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Fraud man claimed to be Medal of Honor vet for money

Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta is the first living soldier to get the Medal of Honor since Vietnam! This has been all over the news. People schuder ran into would know that if they paid attention. Do they care about veterans? Yes, enough to help this fraud, give him a ride, meal and money. Do they don't care enough to know what is going on? It's not really their fault since the TV-Cable media are too focused on other things and they would have to hunt for the information.

Schuder falsely told Rhinehart he was a Marine and a Medal of Honor winner, the affidavit said. He later acknowledged that police had stopped him earlier this year in Indianapolis and in Lebanon, about 20 miles northwest of Indianapolis.

Man accused of posing as Army vet to get money

By Ken Kusmer - The Associated Press
Posted : Friday Sep 10, 2010 18:06:50 EDT

INDIANAPOLIS — A man masquerading as a down-on-his-luck soldier needing travel funds scammed good Samaritans out of nearly $500 before police caught up with him, a prosecutor said Friday.

James Schuder, 43, of Indianapolis, faces seven misdemeanor counts each of deception and panhandling. He was being held on $14,000 bond Friday at the Johnson County Jail in Franklin, about 20 miles south of Indianapolis. Seven counts carry maximum penalties of a year in jail and $5,000 fines. The others have penalties of 60 days and $500 fines.

“Somebody impersonating someone in uniform ... taking advantage of people like that, is just despicable,” said 61-year-old Ken Bush of Greenwood, one of Schuder’s alleged victims.

The Johnson County Sheriff’s Department said Schuder, with his hair cropped short and wearing Army combat fatigues, approached people to ask for money to buy plane tickets or cover other travel expenses, or to get free car rides to nearby towns.

There’s no record of Schuder ever serving in the military, authorities said.

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Man accused of posing as Army vet to get money

TRI-CARE Fraud costs military health program $100 million-plus

Fraud costs military health program $100 million-plus

Fraud in Philippines costs US military health program more than $100 million

RYAN J. FOLEY
AP News

Apr 23, 2008 13:41 EST

The U.S. military's health insurance program has been swindled out of more than $100 million over the past decade in the Philippines, where doctors, hospitals and clinics have conspired with American veterans to submit bogus claims, according to prosecutors and court records.


Seventeen people have been convicted so far — including at least a dozen U.S. military retirees — in a little-noticed investigation that has been handled by federal prosecutors out of Wisconsin because a Madison company holds the contract to process many of the claims. It has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

At the center of the case is Tricare, a Pentagon-run program that insures 9.2 million current and former service members and dependents worldwide. The United States closed its military bases in the Philippines in 1992 and withdrew its active-duty forces, but thousands of retirees remained. Some saw an opportunity to pry easy cash from Tricare.

Health care providers in the Philippines filed claims for medical services never delivered, inflated claims by as much as 2,000 percent and shared kickbacks with retirees who played along, court records reviewed by The Associated Press show.

"There just seemed to be so many possibilities for abuse of the system, and there were so few controls in terms of monitoring," said former U.S. Attorney Peg Lautenschlager, who oversaw prosecutions in the late 1990s.

Pentagon auditors say Tricare moved slowly to uncover and stop the fraud. And a February audit warned that the program is still vulnerable to rip-offs because of lax controls and that similar fraud schemes are starting to emerge in Latin America.

News of the scope of the fraud comes as the Pentagon seeks to raise fees for Tricare's beneficiaries — fourfold, in some cases. The proposed increases have outraged groups representing servicemen and have been blocked by Congress.

Tricare paid $210.9 million in overseas claims in 2006, the latest year for which figures were available. At the height of the fraud in 2003, Pentagon officials say, two-thirds of the $61.8 million paid to Philippine providers — about $40 million — was fraudulent.

The fraud in the Philippines was so extensive that the number of claims filed there skyrocketed nearly 2,000 percent between 1998 and 2003 even as beneficiaries there — about 9,000 mostly retired military members and dependents — remained constant.
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US Army 'war hero' outed as fraud after 40 years

A real lieutenant colonel and West Point graduate, Mark Kimey, instantly spotted there was something not quite right about McGuinn and reported him.
"They're always (Navy) SEALs or special forces," Kimey told the New York Daily News last year. "Nobody ever masquerades as a cook."

US Army 'war hero' outed as fraud
A New Yorker who for 40 years passed himself off as Vietnam war hero who had been decorated for extreme gallantry was sentenced to community service Wednesday after being outed as a fraud.

According to prosecutors, Louis Lowell McGuinn claimed to have been a lieutenant colonel in the US special forces and had used his fake military history since 1968 to get work or to win kudos at social functions.

His military records showed that McGuinn had indeed been in the US Army and served in Vietnam, but was discharged as a private without being decorated.

In 2006, McGuinn, who is now in his 60s, attended a ball in New York's glitzy Pierre Hotel wearing the Distinguished Service Cross, Silver Star, Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts, awarded for being wounded in action.

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Guilty plea in Walter Reed bribery case

Guilty plea in Walter Reed bribery case
Staff reportPosted : Monday Jan 7, 2008 9:19:40 EST

A 42-year-old Maryland resident pleaded guilty Friday to conspiracy to commit bribery and obstruction of an agency investigation in a scheme to influence contracting at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, according to a Justice Department press release.
Louis Pisani Jr., of Silver Spring, Md., also pleaded guilty to mail fraud in an arson insurance fraud scheme. The two cases are unrelated.
According to the plea agreement, Pisani, who was sole shareholder of Platinum Contractors Inc. in Silver Spring and Hyattsville, Md., conspired to bribe a contract specialist to steer government contracts to his companies. The contract specialist worked for Army Medical Command and was responsible for facilitating the procurement of goods and services for Walter Reed.
One of the contracts Pisani tried to influence was potentially worth up to $1.2 million.
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http://www.armytimes.com/news/2008/01/army_pisani_080106/