Six individuals, including an Apopka man, have been indicted for allegedly conspiring to defraud veterans and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) of nearly $20 million in GI Bill benefits.
On Thursday, July 17, U.S. Attorney Greogry W. Kehoe announced the return of an indictment charging the following defendants with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and 10 counts of wire fraud: Zachary Somers Hiscock, 41, of Arizona; Timothy Slater, 66, of Illinois; Nikhil Patel, 48, of Missouri; Gangadhar Bathula, 59, of Virginia; and Arif Hasan Sayed, 54, of California.
If convicted, Hiscock, Slater, Patel, Bathula, and Sayed would each face a maximum penalty of 20 years in federal prison on each count.
A sixth defendant, 38-year-old Apopka resident Kyle Blake Kotecha, was charged by information and has signed a plea agreement for his role in the conspiracy.
The indictment alleges that Hiscock, Slater, Patel, Bathula, and Sayed conspired with Kotecha to “violate the VA regulations that prohibit predatory practices targeting veterans for their GI Bill tuition benefits.” The six defendants are accused of defrauding the VA and veteran students of millions of dollars of their GI Bill benefits.
According to the indictment, five of the defendants – Hiscock, Slater, Patel, Bathula, and Sayed – operated for-profit, non-college degree schools across the U.S. These schools, which offered courses in cybersecurity and computer coding, were approved to receive GI Bill benefits.
VA regulations prohibit schools that receive GI Bill benefits from using a portion of the tuition to compensate individuals who recruit and enroll veteran students. Despite this ban on commission-based recruitment, Hiscock, Slater, Patel, Bathula, and Sayed allegedly recruited Kotecha to “target and recruit veteran students” to attend their schools, paying Kotecha approximately 25% of the benefits the schools obtained through those enrolled students.
The defendants allegedly used coded terms, concealed payments, backdated and falsified contracts, and created fake enrollment records to hide the conspiracy from VA auditors. Additionally, some of the schools allegedly created false attendance records of non-veteran students to “legitimize and disguise the dramatic increases of veteran enrollments.”
The recruitment scheme allegedly brought millions of dollars in GI Bill benefits into schools that previously received “little to none.” These schools charged veterans tuition, which was at or near the annual cap of $24,000, for instruction that lasted between 8 to 13 weeks.
As a result of the alleged conspiracy, the schools are being charged with forfeiting $19,232,390 of GI Bill benefits that were fraudulently obtained.
Kotecha has agreed to forfeit nearly $4 million to the United States, which is an estimate of the amount he personally obtained from the scheme.
This case was investigated by the Department of Veterans Affairs, Office of Inspector General. It will be prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Noah P. Dorman and Dana E. Hill.
An indictment is merely a formal charge that a defendant has committed one or more violations of federal criminal law. Every defendant is presumed innocent unless, and until, proven guilty.