LOS ANGELES
– The owner and president of a San Fernando Valley trucking school pleaded
guilty today to federal criminal charges for bilking the United States
Department of Veterans Affairs out of more than $4 million in tuition and other
payments after falsely certifying that veterans had attended classes that they
never took.
Emmit
Marshall, 52, of Woodland Hills, pleaded guilty to five felony counts of wire
fraud. United States District Judge Stephen V. Wilson scheduled a November 18
sentencing hearing, where Marshall will face a statutory maximum sentence of
100 years in federal prison.
Marshall, the owner and president of
Chatsworth-based Alliance School of Trucking (AST), admitted in his plea
agreement that, from July 2011 until April 2015, he and co-defendant Robert
Waggoner, 56, of Canyon Country, who was a director at AST, schemed to defraud
the VA. Marshall and Waggoner recruited eligible veterans to take trucking
classes paid under the Post-9/11 GI Bill. AST was certified to offer classes
under the Post-9/11 GI Bill that included a 160-hour Tractor Trailer &
Safety class and a 600-hour Select Driver Development Program.
Pursuant to
the Post-9/11 GI Bill, the VA paid tuition and fees directly to the school at
which the veteran was enrolled. The VA also paid a housing allowance to the
veteran enrolled full-time in an approved program, and, in some cases, the VA
paid a books and supplies benefit directly to the veteran. Marshall admitted
that Waggoner and another individual recruited eligible veterans to enroll at
AST by telling the veterans they could collect housing and other fees from the
VA without attending the programs. Knowing that the vast majority of veterans
enrolling at AST did not intend to attend any portion of those programs,
Marshall and Waggoner created and submitted fraudulent enrollment
certifications, according to Marshall’s plea agreement. They also created
student files that contained bogus documents.
When they
became aware of the investigation into their conduct, Marshall, Waggoner and
others at AST removed fraudulent documents from student files, and Marshall
later ordered that these files be destroyed, the plea agreement states.
From the end
of 2011 through April 2015, as a result of the fraudulent scheme, the VA paid
AST approximately $2.3 million in tuition and fee payments for veterans who
purportedly attended approved programs at AST, according to the plea agreement.
During that same period, the VA also paid approximately $1.9 million in
education benefits directly to veterans who purportedly attended approved
programs at AST, the plea agreement states. Investigators are continuing to
finalize the exact loss figure, but the total loss to the VA is estimated to be
approximately $4.2 million
Waggoner is
scheduled to go to trial in this case on February 25, 2020.
This matter was investigated by the U.S.
Department of Veterans Affairs’ Office of Inspector General, the U.S.
Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, and the Federal Bureau
of Investigation.
This case is
being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Kimberly D. Jaimez of the
Major Frauds Section.
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