Where there is government money being spent, greedy corporations and individuals will submit false claims
Over the many years that our law firm Begelman & Orlow has represented whistleblowers in NJ and PA, we have handled numerous cases involving education department fraud. Many of these cases involve fraud in the enrollment, education of students and financial aid. Fraud against the government can take any form that obtains government funds or retains government funds based on false statements, representations or knowing violations of laws and/or regulations (known as Implied Certification Cases} or express false certifications of compliance with federal and/or state laws (known as Express Certification Cases). Since our law firm successfully handled the lead case in the Third Circuit, which is the highest appellate court for the states surrounding Philadelphia, meaning Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware establishing that an express or implied false certification is a violation of the False Claims Act, we will address that issue in more detail in another blog post on the False Claims Act.
These education fraud cases can be express or implied false claims and take many forms. Recently a case is being prosecuted and was filed under the False Claims Act for fraud committed to obtain funds under the GI Bill that was enacted after September 11, 2001, which is know as the Post 9/11 GI Bill. The allegations are that under that act, which supplied government funds to veterans for their education, Yavapai College and Guidance Aviation submitted fable claims against the False Claims Act in the amount of sixty million dollars by not complying with the requirements of the Veterans Administration.
Most education funding programs require a split between government funded students (financial aid recipients) and private pay students to qualify for government funding. In the case of this Veterans Administration program under the GI Bill, the split needed to be 85/15, meaning that there were 15 private pay students for every 85 public pay students receiving financial aid from the government. The case alleges that the 15 students who were certified as private were, in fact, not private pay, and did not receive flight training but were employees of Guidance Education Corporation. This typo of fraud allegation is quite common and has proven to be actionable under the False Claims Act. What makes this case more unique in that the fraud alleged occurred under the GI bill.
Fraud is not rare: where there is government money being spent, greedy corporations and individuals will submit false claims! At Begelman & Orlow, we represent whistleblowers under the False Claims Act and have handled these types of claims for many years involving all types of fraud against the government, including education fraud, as described this post. We are one of the most experienced firms in the nation in this area and welcome your questions or calls.