” . . . (continued excerpt) . . .Allegedly stole GI Bill benefits
“According to the [Bradley Croft] indictment,” reported Guillermo Contreras of the San Antonio Express News, “in 2013, Croft [applied to] the Texas Veterans Commission to obtain certification to allow Universal K-9 to receive GI Bill educational benefit payments for providing dog handler training.
“In October 2015, Croft emailed several documents to the commission containing the names of four people who were purported to be instructors for Universal K-9 classes for which Croft was seeking approval to obtain GI Bill benefits. They are listed as victims 1-4 in the indictment.”
Said the indictment, “None of those individuals had granted Croft permission to use their names.”
Claimed a dead man as trainer
Nor were any of them “working as instructors at Universal K-9 in the classes described in the application,” the indictment said. “Victim 1 had died two years prior to the submission of the application for approval.”
“Based on the documents,” Contreras wrote, “the Texas Veterans Commission granted Universal K-9 approval for participating in the GI Bill program. Croft and others, who are not charged, then solicited veterans as students for the dog handler course, indicating that veterans could use their GI Bill benefits to pay for the course. Croft and the others would enroll veterans in the course and submit enrollment records to the VA for payment, knowing the approval of the training had been fraudulently obtained, the indictment said.
Bagged $1.26 million
“Between 2016 through the date of the indictment,” Contreras summarized, “Universal filed approximately 185 claims relating to the education of 132 veterans, totaling $1.26 million, the indictment said.”
According to court records, Contreras added, “Croft has a lengthy criminal history, which includes shooting at people and other violence, and a federal conviction in the late 1990s involving insurance fraud, for which he got five years of probation.”
- - - more detailed article at link. - - -
Wonderful headline.
if it wasn't such a pathetic attempt to make pits look good, it could have been a monty python sketch, along the line of, "Tigers make wonderful pets! you should get one for yer mum!" And "E's not dead yet!" "yes he is! he's singing with the Angels, gone to the great beyond, pushing up daiseys, he's meeting St. Peter right now.he's dead!!. ..."