Thirteen members of the National Guard Bureau have received
their sentences for their roles in wide-ranging bribery and fraud schemes that
caused more than $170,000 in losses to the United States. Seven of those members were sentenced this
past week in Houston.
Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice
Department’s Criminal Division and U.S. Attorney Kenneth Magidson of the
Southern District of Texas made the announcement.
Jammie Martin, 38, of Katy, Texas, and Michelle Davis, 34,
of Houston, were convicted in February of this year after a five-day trial of
conspiracy, bribery, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. Martin was sentenced to serve 102 months in
prison and Davis was sentenced to serve 57 months in prison.
Vanessa Phillips, 37, of Houston, pleaded guilty to one
count of conspiracy and one count of bribery and was sentenced to three years
probation.
Zaunmine “Orlando” Duncan, 39, of Douglasville, Georgia,
pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy, one count of bribery and one count
of aggravated identity theft. He was
sentenced to serve 70 months in prison.
Annika Chambers, 29, of Houston, and Lashae Hawkins, 29, of
San Antonio, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of bribery. Chambers was sentenced to serve six months in
prison. Hawkins received one year and
one day in prison.
Christopher
Renfro, 27, of Houston, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy, one count of
bribery, one count of aggravated identity theft and two counts of wire
fraud. He was sentenced to serve 36
months in prison.
In June, six other members of the National Guard were
sentenced for their roles in the scheme.
Michael Rambaran, 52, of Pearland, Texas, pleaded guilty to
one count of conspiracy, one count of bribery and one count of aggravated
identity theft. He was sentenced to
serve 60 months in prison.
Edia Antoine, 29, and Ernest A. Millien III, 51, both of
Houston, and Melanie Moraida, 35, of Pearland, pleaded guilty to one count of
conspiracy and one count of bribery.
Each received 12 months and one day in prison.
Elisha Ceja, 28, of Barboursville, West Virginia, and
Kimberly Hartgraves, 30, of League City, Texas, pleaded guilty to one count of
conspiracy and one count of bribery.
Ceja was sentenced to serve nine months in prison and Hartgraves
received probation.
U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal in the Southern
District of Texas imposed the prison terms and also ordered all 13 defendants
to pay restitution. One remaining
defendant, Danielle Applin 29, of Harker Heights, Texas, who previously pleaded
guilty to one count of conspiracy and one count of bribery, is scheduled to be
sentenced on Sept. 2, 2015, in Houston.
In approximately September 2005, the National Guard Bureau
entered into a contract with Document and Packaging Broker Inc. to administer
the Guard Recruiting Assistance Program (G-RAP). Through this program, a participating
soldier, known as a recruiting assistant, could receive bonus payments for referring
another individual to join the National Guard.
Based on certain milestones achieved by the referred soldier, a
participating soldier would receive payment through direct deposit into the
participating soldier’s designated bank account. To participate in the program, recruiting
assistants were required to create online accounts.
According to the evidence presented at trial and in
connection with various guilty pleas, Phillips and Davis, both of whom
participated in the G-RAP as recruiting assistants, conspired with Martin, a
recruiter, to defraud the program by falsely claiming that they were
responsible for referring potential soldiers to join the National Guard. The trial evidence showed that Martin used his
position to obtain the names and Social Security numbers of potential soldiers
which he provided to recruiting assistants so that they could use the
information to obtain fraudulent recruiting referral bonuses. The evidence at trial showed that, in exchange
for the information, Martin, who organized and led the scheme, personally
received approximately $15,000 in payments from the recruiting assistants. This scheme resulted in more than $30,000 in
losses to the National Guard Bureau.
In a separate scheme that resulted in an additional $70,000
in losses, recruiting assistants Antoine, Millien, Moraida and Renfro admitted
to paying Rambaran, a recruiter who organized and led the scheme, for the
personal information of potential soldiers.
They then used that information to obtain fraudulent bonuses by falsely
claiming they referred those individuals to join the National Guard. Rambaran admitted that, in exchange for the
recruit information, he personally received a total of approximately $29,000 in
payments from the recruiting assistants.
In connection with his guilty plea in a scheme he organized
and led, Duncan, a recruiter, admitted he personally received approximately
$24,000 in payments from recruiting assistants in exchange for personal
information of potential soldiers. Those
recruiting assistants – Ceja, Chambers, Hartgraves and Hawkins – admitted to
paying Duncan for the information and using it to obtain fraudulent bonuses by
falsely claiming they referred those individuals to join the National Guard. This scheme resulted in another $70,000 in
losses to the National Guard Bureau.
The cases were investigated by the San Antonio Fraud
Resident Agency of Army Criminal Investigation Command’s Major Procurement
Fraud Unit. These cases are being
prosecuted by Trial Attorneys Sean F. Mulryne, Heidi Boutros Gesch and Mark J.
Cipolletti of the Criminal Division’s Public Integrity Section and Assistant
U.S. Attorney John Pearson of the Southern District of Texas.
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