Department of Veterans Affairs Official Pleads Guilty to Bribery, Fraud, and Obstruction in $2 Milli

https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/department-veterans-affairs-official-pleads-guilty-bribery-fraud-and-obstruction-2

Department of Justice
U.S. Attorney’s Office
District of Columbia

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Friday, October 26, 2018

Department of Veterans Affairs Official Pleads Guilty to Bribery, Fraud, and Obstruction in $2 Million Scheme Involving Program for Disabled Military Veterans

WASHINGTON – A former U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) official pled guilty today to demanding and receiving bribes from three for-profit schools in exchange for enrolling disabled military veterans in those schools and facilitating over $2 million in payments from the VA using the veterans’ federal benefits.
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James King, 63, of Baltimore, Maryland, pled guilty to an Information alleging one count of honest services and money/property wire fraud, one count of bribery, and one count of falsifying records to obstruct an administrative investigation. The plea was entered before U.S. District Judge John D. Bates of the District of Columbia, who set sentencing for Jan. 15, 2019.
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According to King’s admissions made in connection with his plea, the Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (VR&E) 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.

From 2015 through 2017, King, using his position as a VR&E program counselor, demanded and received cash bribes from the owners of Atius Technology Institute (Atius), Eelon Training Academy (Eelon), and a school identified in documents as “School A,” a school purporting to specialize in physical security classes. King facilitated over $2 million in payments to Atius, over $83,000 to Eelon, and over $340,000 to “School A,” all in furtherance of King’s separate agreements with the respective school owners to commit bribery and defraud the VA. King agreed with Poawui and Stevens that they would each pay him, in cash, seven percent of the money they received from the VA in exchange for King steering veterans to their schools and facilitating VA payments. King similarly accepted cash payments from the owner of School A, who is identified as Person A in the Information, in exchange for the same official acts.

In order to maximize the profits from their fraud, all three school owners sent King and other VA officials false information about the education being provided to veterans, and King facilitated payments to all three schools knowing this information was false. King also admitted to repeatedly lying to veterans under his supervision in order to convince them to attend Atius, Eelon, or School A. For example, King falsely instructed one veteran that, unless he attended School A, his VR&E program benefits would “lapse.” King insisted that this veteran enroll in School A despite the veteran’s protests that he could not engage in physical security work due to a physical disability, and despite the fact that the veteran had enrolled in the VR&E program to pursue his dream of becoming a baker.

In early 2017, the VA initiated a fact-finding inquiry into Atius based on complaints by students as to the quality of education at the school. In August 2017, after King became aware of the inquiry, he created a falsified site visit report and instructed Poawui to send it to another VA official, all in an effort to obstruct the VA’s inquiry into Atius. In January 2018, after Poawui had begun to cooperate with the government in its investigation, King attempted to convince Poawui to lie to the grand jury about the purpose of the bribe payments.
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