FL couple arrested for bilking VA
MCPO Ret. In TN sends us a link to NBC in regards to a story about a Florida couple who supplied training to veterans and then billed the Department of Veterans’ Affairs for the training, occasionally at a rate more than ten times the actual cost;
According to the documents, Hyde, the president of Hy-Tech Training Center in Miramar, and Clark, the company’s vice president, billed the VA inflated amounts for training courses in private investigations provided to veterans at the center.
In one instance, the company billed the VA $5,750 for a private investigator course that cost students $499, the documents said. The course was also offered on Groupon for just $249. The company billed the VA for 103 veterans. The VA lost approximately $200,000, the documents said.
Yeah, the pair are at fault, but then, so is the VA. I know it comes from different piles of money, but they’re so damned careful how they pay disabled veterans, unless the vet is a phony, but they throw money at people like this who are in business to defraud the VA.
Their lawyer’s defense runs along the same lines;
I presume the VA looks at invoices that are submitted to them,” said defense attorney Martin Roth. “They audit the invoices and they pay them when they’re appropriate. These are paid invoices.”
Category: Crime, Veterans' Affairs Department
And this is how Phil Monkress at All-Points Logistics got his start….
The rest, or so they say, is history.
Green Thumb…Yes, Phil Monkress of All-Points Logistics is the poster boy of this sort of crap.
Preach it Green
I am so fed up with the VA for allowing things like this. I do not take away the responsibility of the two frauds who perpetrated this at all. Con artists, will con whoever they can, whenever they can. These two just saw a gravy train and jumped on board. Meanwhile, deserving vets can’t get appointments. Vets have and are dying from lack of care, all the while the Christopher MacFarlands of the country are scamming the VA system as hard as they can go. Ultimately it is the VA’s responsibility to be sure they are not being defrauded of money and services by con men. They have a poor record of that though to say the least.
I wonder if some VA bureaucrat didn’t give itself a bonus for this, or if it got a kickback or three?
Their attorney must have a hard time walking around with those giant brass balls…appropriately billing the government?
Really? That is the defense? Hey, the VA paid the bill so it must be legit!
Where’d he get his degree at his clients training facility?
VOV: a lawyer is paid to advocate in favor of his/her client’s interests. For many, IMO truth and honesty becomes a secondary consideration to advancing that client’s interests.
Sadly, I believe you. I get the part about sticking up for the client interests, but methinks a better story is in order….maybe along the lines of my clients heavily discounted the course catalog in direct payments required from veterans, and then billed the government for the full cost of the course as that was our interpretation of the process, should it be determined our understanding of the pertinent legal data was incorrect we would be happy to correct the simple billing oversight at least that comes across as less about fraud and more about interpretation.
With that VA paid it comment, it sounds like he’s claiming it’s not their fault for submitting higher bills because the VA didn’t check the actual costs. I was just shocked by the audacity of that approach my friend.
It’s stuff like this that I tried to get my more liberal friends to understand about the VHA scandal. That yes the VA is getting 124 Billion dollars, but how much of that is actually being used on health care or education programs? How many of those programs are not scams? How much oversight is the fraud/waste/abuse folks providing? Has anyone noticed these and reported it?
The collection of reports from the media is a no all the way around in the VA. As long as the medical quotas are met and as long as the college and burial quotas are met, then no one gives a flying squirrel how the money is wasted. Even if those quotas are a joke and the bureaucracy is gaming the system.
Well, Charles, if you liked that, you will love this. A fellow by the name of Gene Protogiannis (of Virginia) just pleaded guilty to wire fraud in a deal with the Feds. The wire fraud was his taking cash advances at a casino. So what? So, he was doing it with his gov’t-isued credit card! He was a supervisor with Homeland Security–U.S. Customs and Border Protection. Um, cash advances? At a casino? Yeah, $115,853.55 worth. That’s alot of slot play. It wasn’t Vegas or Atlantic City. It was a small casino in W VA., coincidentally, a few miles from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Advanced Training Center. Coincidentally.
Cav,
Don’t remind me about those fracking travel cards. There was a guy in a squadron down the flight line from mine who was found to have used his to the tune of 10k for a couple of lady friends at the Ranch in Vegas before the powers to be clamped down. Other times on official travel I watched as we gave kids training on the GTCs only to be 36 hours on a training details and they are poor because they took all the cash out and blew it on horse apples out in town.
However, going back to point. The cultural corruption in the VA is such that the folks looking to prevent crimes like this just didn’t care. It is like being a cop in Detroit or Gotham, your honest integrity is destroyed till either you are contribute to the problem or you avoid wack a mole a problem beyond the obvious shenanigans.
Do not forget the VBA fraud, waste and abuse.
The attorney said nothing wrong but I can see how it could raise a few eyebrows. He began with “I presume that”– a code for “I just got this case, don’t know the facts, haven’t investigated, and on the face of it this sounds like a usual business transaction.” He would have been better off saying just that BUT he is the advocate. It’s all for public consumption anyway, something the prosecutors dislike, except when it comes to their PR. Just look at, say, any US Atty’s website one time.
Sounded to me like the lawyer said “well, ya paid ’em, suckers, nothing you can do now”
The VA needs to have a highly publicized Fraud Prosecution team.
I’d even sub contract competent Private investigators to bust frauds.
They would also get a bonus based on the money recovered or saved by exposing phonies.
Old Dog,
First they need a SWAT Team. There is a great place in Colorado they can train and learn from a Federal Agent.