#Middlebury #Veterans
Why is it some people have such a sense of entitlement that they think it’s OK to steal from veterans? Worse, why is it that the crooks think they’re not going to get caught?
A handful of government departments – notably the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of the Inspector General, the Defense Criminal Investigative Service’s OIG and the FBI – banded together to nail yet another person who claimed that his small business was owned by a disabled veteran. In this case, the suspect took in nearly $12 million in construction contracts from 2007 to 2015 while working on a few VA medical centers. The person he claimed was the disabled veteran didn’t actually work for the company.
Per the Service-Disabled Veteran-Owned Small Businesses program, at least 51 percent of a company claiming disabled veteran status has to be owned by the veteran. Part of that program is to give at least 3 percent of all contracts to service-disabled veteran-owned small businesses. More specifically, per the program requirements, the small business must “have one or more service-disabled veterans manage day-to-day operations and also make long-term decisions.” In other words, you can’t just lend your name to a business.
Inquiring minds want to know, however, how something like this can go on for so long. The fast track to discovery of a scam like this seems so simple: Once a year send a form to the disabled veteran owner and ask that it be signed in front of a notary to verify that he/she is indeed still involved in the day-to-day operations of “X” business. Lying would put their benefits at risk.
At this point the guy has only been indicted. But he did plead guilty to one of the accessory charges.
© 2019 King Features Synd. Inc.
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