A Maryland man was sentenced on June 14 to 30 months in prison and ordered to pay $150,000 in restitution for defrauding a U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs program dedicated to rehabilitating military veterans with disabilities.
According to court documents, Francis Engles, 65, of Bowie, was the owner and operator of Engles Security Training School (Engles Security).
In August 2015, Engles Security became an approved vendor of the VAs Vocational Rehabilitation & Employment program, which provides disabled U.S. military veterans with services.
The company obtained over 80% of its total revenue from the VA in exchange for purporting to provide certain courses to disabled military veterans.
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According to a Department of Justice release, Engles falsely represented to the VA that his company was providing veterans with months-long courses for 40 hours per week and over 600 total hours.
“In fact, as Engles knew, Engles Security offered veterans far less than what Engles represented to the VA. In some instances, it offered only a few hours of class per day for several weeks,” the DOJ said. “Some veterans did not attend more than one day of class.”
Engles sent the VA “Certificates of Training” stating that veterans had completed courses that they had not completed or, in some instances, had not taken at all. Engles also submitted letters to the VA falsely stating that the veterans were employed by Engles’ private security business.
He also instructed veterans to sign attendance sheets for classes that he knew they did not in fact attend. In total, Engles Security obtained $337,960 from the VA for the purported education of military veterans.
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Engles also attempted to obstruct the investigation into his fraud, according to the release.
“During an interview with federal agents, Engles lied about veteran students’ attendance at the school and later, when Engles Security was served with a grand jury subpoena, Engles prevented his employee from producing responsive documents that she had gathered,” the release states.
Some of these documents were later discovered in the government’s search of Engles Security’s office.
In February 2019, four other individuals were sentenced in related cases following their guilty pleas.
James King, a former Veterans Affairs employee, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for committing bribery, defrauding the VA, and obstructing justice.
Albert Poawui, the owner of Atius Technology Institute, was sentenced to 70 months in prison for committing bribery.
Sombo Kanneh, Poawui’s employee, was sentenced to 20 months in prison for conspiracy to commit bribery.
Michelle Stevens, the owner of Eelon Training School, was sentenced to 30 months in prison for committing bribery.
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com
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