Pennsylvania Man Charged In Alleged $35 Million Fraud Against Veterans’ Education GI Bill

[nitpicker]

https://www.justice.gov/usao-nj/pr/pennsylvania-man-charged-alleged-35-million-fraud-against-veterans-education-gi-bill

Department of Justice

U.S. Attorney’s Office

District of New Jersey

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, April 21, 2016

Pennsylvania Man Charged In Alleged $35 Million Fraud Against Veterans’ Education GI Bill

NEWARK, N.J. – A Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, man will appear in federal court today to face charges that he conspired to defraud millions from the Post 9/11 GI Bill, a federal education benefits program designed to help veterans who served in the armed forces following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman announced.

David Alvey, 49, is charged by complaint with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. Special agents with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Inspector General, the FBI, and the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Inspector General, arrested Alvey this morning in Maryland. He will appear this afternoon before U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher in Maryland federal court.
(snip)

According to the complaint unsealed today:

From November 2009 through August 2013, Alvey and others engaged in a conspiracy to defraud the United States by obtaining tuition assistance and other education-related benefits under the Post 9/11 Education Assistance Act, more commonly known as the Post 9/11 GI Bill.
(snip)

Over the course of the conspiracy, Alvey, operating largely through his own company, ED4MIL LLC (“ED4MIL”), partnered with a New Jersey university (the “University”), to obtain approval from the United States to receive tuition and other education benefits under the Post 9/11 GI Bill for several online non-credit training and certification courses. These courses were purportedly developed, taught, and administered by the faculty of the University, but were, in fact, actually developed, taught, and administered by undisclosed and unapproved sub-contractors of ED4MIL, including an online correspondence school located in Pennsylvania.

Alvey and others at ED4MIL developed marketing materials and a script to be used by ED4MIL salespersons at various military bases around the United States in order to market to and enroll thousands of veterans in the courses. These “field representatives” employed by ED4MIL traveled across the United States pitching the fraudulent courses to veterans using the marketing materials and script developed by Alvey and others at ED4MIL. Field representatives were instructed to identify themselves to veterans as employees of the University, and were specifically told not to mention ED4MIL or the online correspondence school in which the veterans were actually enrolled. The marketing materials were emblazoned with the University’s insignia, and the field representatives wore t-shirts and handed out pens bearing the University’s name. The field representatives, and several other employees at ED4MIL, were also given University email addresses with which to communicate with the veterans.

Alvey and others then nominally enrolled the veterans in the University while simultaneously enrolling them in the unapproved online correspondence courses. Due to the fact that Alvey and others concealed the true source of the courses and the contract relationships between the University and ED4MIL, the veterans were unaware that the courses they were taking were actually being taught and administered by the online correspondence school.

Even though the University contributed no content or value to the courses whatsoever, the University charged the Post 9/11 GI Bill between ten and thirty times the prices charged by the online correspondence school for the same courses. While most courses at the correspondence school cost between approximately $600 and $1,000 in tuition, the University charged between approximately $5,000 and $26,000 per course. Over the course of the conspiracy, Alvey and others caused the United States to pay out over approximately $35 million in total benefits.
(snip)

[nitpicker]

1. Employees of Caldwell University were conspirators

http://taskandpurpose.com/man-scammed-va-35-million-goes-court/

[denbot]

2. CR England, and a shitload of other trucking companies should be charged as well..

They charge the VA market rates for CDL/Truck Drivers School. I started with them, one of the questions they asked was if I was a veteran, and when I said yes the recruiter asked me if I wanted to use my education benefits to cover training.

This made no sense since they trained for free as long as you drove for them no less then 6 months after training.

Once I started, I spoke to several vets, and some of them used part of their ed bennies to pay England for what they would have gotten for free anyway.

Support Our Troops, my ass.