Claims Administrators should carefully review SJDB vouchers for possible fraudulent claims, especially if they pertain to Alliance School of Trucking in Chatsworth.
Emmit Marshall, 52, the owner and president of the trucking school pleaded guilty 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.
The is scheduled for a sentencing hearing on a November 18, 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.
Waggoner is scheduled to go to trial in this case on February 25, 2020.