SCAM DUPING VETERANS INVOLVED THE VA ITSELF
COMPILATION AND COMMENTARY
BY LUCY WARNER
FEBRUARY 22, 2019

IS THIS REPORT OF A $2 MILLION FRAUDULENT SET OF PAYMENTS TO AN UNSCRUPULOUS BUSINESS COMPLETE IN ITS’ INVESTIGATION, I WONDER? WHY DIDN’T PEOPLE ALONG THE CHAIN OF MANAGEMENT ASK QUESTIONS? WHO IN TOTAL, EITHER AT THE VA OR THE SCHOOL, RECEIVED MONEY, OR WAS IT LIMITED TO THE HANDFUL OF PEOPLE MENTIONED IN THIS STORY? WASN’T SOMEONE WATCHING THE EXPENDITURES AND WHERE THE MONEY WENT? AT THE VERY LEAST, THIS SHOULD BE CONSIDERED ANOTHER VA SCANDAL, AND AT THE WORST THERE MAY BE A MORE THOROUGH CRIME INVOLVING MORE GREEDY HANDS HERE. SEE THE DOJ REPORT ON THE SHAMEFUL SITUATION AND THE WASHINGTON POST STORY BELOW FOR THE TRIAL RESULTS.

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/school-owner-pleads-guilty-2-million-bribery-scheme-involving-va-program-disabled-military
Department of Justice
Office of Public Affairs
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Monday, April 16, 2018

School Owner Pleads Guilty to $2 Million Bribery Scheme Involving VA Program for Disabled Military Veterans

The owner of Atius Technology Institute (“Atius”), a privately owned, non-accredited school specializing in information technology courses, pleaded guilty today to bribing a public official at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) in exchange for the public official’s facilitation of over $2 million in payments that were supposed to be dedicated to providing vocational training for military veterans with service-connected disabilities. Acting Assistant Attorney General John P. Cronan of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu for the District of Columbia made the announcement.

Albert S. Poawui, 41, of Laurel, Maryland, pleaded guilty to an Information alleging one count of bribing a public official. The plea was entered before U.S. District Judge John D. Bates of the District of Columbia.

According to Poawui’s admissions made in connection with his plea, the Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (VR&E) program is a VA program that provides disabled U.S. military veterans with education and employment-related services. VR&E program counselors advise veterans under their supervision which schools to attend and facilitate payments to those schools for veterans’ tuition and necessary supplies.

According to admissions made in connection with Poawui’s plea, in or about August 2015, Poawui and a VR&E program counselor agreed that Poawui would pay the counselor a seven percent cash kickback of all payments made by the VA to Atius. In exchange, the counselor steered VR&E program veterans to Atius and approved Atius’s invoices for payment.

Poawui admitted that the counselor and a second VR&E counselor approved payments to Atius without regard for the accuracy of necessary documentation in order to maximize the scheme’s profits. Between August 2015 and December 2017, Poawui and the scheme’s other participants caused the VA to pay Atius approximately $2,217,259.44. Poawui paid the first VR&E counselor over $155,000 as part of the illicit bribery scheme. These bribery payments were hand-delivered by Poawui or an Atius employee to the VR&E counselor or the counselor’s assistant, a veteran who was enrolled in the VR&E program.

Poawui also admitted that, with the knowing assistance of a second Atius employee, he made numerous false representations to the VA to enhance the scheme’s profits. For example, Poawui and the second employee certified to the VA that veterans attending Atius were enrolled in up to 32 hours of class per week, when in fact both knew that Atius offered a maximum of six weekly class hours. After the VA initiated an administrative audit of Atius, Poawui, the VR&E counselor and the Atius employee took steps to conceal the truth about earlier misrepresentations they had made to the VA.

Poawui’s plea is the result of an ongoing investigation by the FBI’s Washington Field Office and the VA Office of Inspector General. Assistant U.S. Attorney Adrienne Dedjinou of the U.S. Attorney’s for the Office of the District of Columbia also investigated the matter. Trial Attorney Simon J. Cataldo of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section and Assistant U.S. Attorney Sonali D. Patel of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia are prosecuting the case.

Topic(s):
Public Corruption
Component(s):
Criminal Division
USAO - District of Columbia
Press Release Number:
18-487
Updated April 23, 2018


THIS WASHINGTON POST STORY REPORTS THE COURT RULING. THE DETAILS OF THE CRIME WERE A LITTLE MUDDLED, I THOUGHT IN THIS, SO I SEARCHED FOR THE ORIGINAL DOCUMENT. IT IS COMPLEX, BUT MUCH MORE CLEANLY LAID OUT. IT WENT ON FOR SO LONG AND INVOLVED SO MANY WITHOUT THEIR BEING CAUGHT EARLIER THAT I WONDER IF MEMBERS OF THE MANAGEMENT LEVELS AT THE VA WERE ALSO GUILTY OF INVOLVEMENT AS WELL. WHETHER OR NOT THAT IS THE CASE, THE NATURE AND EXTENT OF THIS CRIME SHOULD BE STERNLY PUNISHED, AS IT IS THE WORST SORT OF ROBBERY OF PEOPLE WHO WILL BE LIVING ON VERY LITTLE MONEY AS IT IS. HE CERTAINLY SHOULD SERVE MORE THAN ELEVEN YEARS. PERHAPS ALSO, THE LAW THAT THE VA FOLLOWS SHOULD BE EXAMINED BY CONGRESS FOR CHANGES. THIS STATEMENT THAT KING'S ACTIONS WERE "A CUSTOM AND PRACTICE" THAT WAS COMMONLY FOLLOWED IS UNBELIEVABLE TO ME. SEE BELOW.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/public-safety/va-official-steered-88-disabled-veterans-to-sham-job-training-in-2-million-fraud-bribery-scheme/2019/02/15/b2dcf24c-30a7-11e9-86ab-5d02109aeb01_story.html?utm_term=.d753b615866a
Public Safety
VA official steered 88 disabled veterans to sham job training in $2 million fraud-bribery scheme
By Spencer S. Hsu February 15, 2019

PHOTOGRAPH -- James King, a VA official who led a scheme to steer 88 disabled veterans and more than $2 million in taxpayer-funded benefits to sham job-retraining schools in exchange for bribes and kickbacks, was sentenced Friday to 11 years in prison. (Charles Dharapak/AP)

A disabled infantryman who served three tours in Iraq and was exploited by a Department of Veterans Affairs official looked across a courtroom and called on the man to think hard in prison about what he had done.

“You took an oath to serve veterans. You took an oath to serve your country. But money and greed corrupted you,” Chris Burke, 51, of Herndon, Va., a former U.S. infantry member who served three tours, told James King in federal court Friday at King’s sentencing hearing.

King led a scheme to steer 88 disabled veterans and more than $2 million in taxpayer-funded benefits to sham job-retraining schools in exchange for bribes and kickbacks.

He was sentenced to 11 years in prison in Washington after former U.S. service members told a judge how King, 61, of Baltimore, wasted years of their lives and left them with nothing but debt and stolen dreams of post-service careers.

Many times, Burke said, he and other veterans waited in their cars or stood in front of a locked storefront office of Atius Technology Institute of Beltsville, Md., while instructors failed to show. Burke told the court that he called and went to King’s office to try to get a response, and got no answer after raising complaints to a department office in Baltimore.

Burke said he broke his left hip, four vertebrae and his collarbone in a military exercise, and hoped to receive training to work with computers through classes at either the University of Maryland, a community college or Strayer University, which offers classes to students mostly online. But when he raised that in the retraining program, Burke told the judge, King lied to him and told him Atius was his only choice.

“In prison, I want you to think about families and others you were supposed to help,” Burke told King. “Think about how you can make it right.”

Another veteran, who was not identified and whose letter to the court was read by Assistant U.S. Attorney Simon Cataldo of the District, said that after two years of study, “I have nothing to show for it.”

The letter posed the question: “How am I supposed to justify the knowledge I gained from a fraudulent institution,” or the time out of the job market, to skeptical employers? VA will not compensate or credit her for the wasted benefits, she wrote.

VA’s vocational rehabilitation and employment program provides counselors and money for education and training to help disabled veterans land civilian work.

Cataldo said King’s victims included older service members who had finished their military careers, young ones just establishing themselves after deployment and immigrant veterans getting their first exposure to U.S. civilian life.

Some may have wanted to learn mortuary science or culinary skills, but King ignored requests and misled them, U.S. District Judge John D. Bates* said. King admitted to padding invoices and student hours, and receiving $155,000 in kickbacks or bribes.

King pleaded guilty in October to one count each of honest services* and wire fraud, bribery and falsifying records to obstruct the investigation, which revealed he steered $2.1 million in U.S. veterans benefits to three for-profit schools in exchange for a cut, and manipulated veterans to attend those schools despite having better options.

Three school owners and employees who admitted bribing King already have been sentenced. Atius owner Albert Poawui must serve 70 months in prison and pay back $1.5 million; Atius employee Sombo Kanneh must serve 20 months and pay back $113,000; and Michelle Stevens, the owner of Eelon Training Academy of Leesburg, Fla., which King helped set up, was sentenced to serve 30 months in prison and pay back $83,000.

In court, King admitted his crimes but asked for forgiveness, saying he had a caseload of 250 veterans and failed to check on schools.

“I can’t say I am not responsible for it because I am, and I am sorry,” King said.

King’s lawyer, William Buie III, went further, asserting King merely followed a “custom and practice” of federal employees and contractors at VA and elsewhere exploiting insider skills for rewards before or after leaving public-sector work.

King’s actions were “indefensible,” Buie said, but asked for a fair sentence that considered his age, lack of criminal history, his 7-year-old daughter, past military service and his lesser cut in the scheme, which he was ordered to pay back in restitution.

Bates, a Vietnam War veteran and former U.S. Army lieutenant, noted that King did not leave the military “on the best terms,” adding that the judge himself was 72-years-old.

[NOTE ABOUT BATES' AGE: JUDGE BATES -- John Deacon Bates (born October 11, 1946)]

Bates sentenced King to less than the 14 to 17½ years prosecutors sought, noting King’s age and lesser financial benefit in the overall scheme, but said King led and orchestrated multiple schemes involving multiple bribes from several “grossly deficient” schools over more than two years, victimizing veterans, taxpayers and VA.

“This was a lengthy, broad and callous bribery scheme and financial scheme, for which you bear the primary responsibility,” Bates said.

His voice rising, Bates said, “People need to know that that cannot continue at VA. We cannot allow people in public office who are being bribed to send money to companies.”

In a statement, U.S. Attorney Jessie K. Liu of the District cited King’s betrayal of public trust for those he was to serve as a mentor and counselor. “Instead of helping our veterans, he lined his own pockets by taking bribes to send them to three sham schools that brought them only pain and frustration,” Liu said.