On the heels of a report that the Veterans Affairs Department
wasted $2.2 billion in taxpayer money last year, a Navy veteran
appeared Wednesday in federal court in San Antonio on charges he lied
about his company's qualifications to the VA to get $2 million in
contracts for work at one of its hospitals.
Jonathan Patrick Saunders was indicted by a federal grand jury March 6 on six counts of wire fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft.
Saunders, of Colorado, is president and co-owner of Saunders MEP Inc., which has been awarded government contracts around the country, including one for building construction projects at the VA Hospital in Kerrville, which is at the center of the indictment.
The indictment alleges that when he applied in March 2008 for the Kerrville contract, he claimed that his company qualified as a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business, that certain people with engineering or architectural qualifications worked for the company and that the company had done work on a previous project. In reality, the indictment said, none of that was true, and Saunders faces the aggravated ID charges because he allegedly used certain people's names without permission.
A selection board relied on his representations to award him the contract, which paid out in installments by wire transfers with money from the Stimulus Act.
His lawyer, John Disrud, said Saunders will waive his April 2 arraignment and plead not guilty. U.S. Magistrate Judge John Primomo released Saunders on $50,000 unsecured bail because the government did not object to his release.
If convicted of wire fraud, Saunders faces up to 20 years on each count. If convicted of aggravated ID theft, he faces two years on top of what he might get for the wire fraud charges.
The Washington Times reported March 17 that the VA's own records show it made more than $2.2 billion in overpayments in 2012, more than half of what the Navy was asked to cut from its budget as part of the sequester.
gcontreras@express-news.net
Twitter: @gmaninfedland
Jonathan Patrick Saunders was indicted by a federal grand jury March 6 on six counts of wire fraud and two counts of aggravated identity theft.
Saunders, of Colorado, is president and co-owner of Saunders MEP Inc., which has been awarded government contracts around the country, including one for building construction projects at the VA Hospital in Kerrville, which is at the center of the indictment.
The indictment alleges that when he applied in March 2008 for the Kerrville contract, he claimed that his company qualified as a Service Disabled Veteran Owned Small Business, that certain people with engineering or architectural qualifications worked for the company and that the company had done work on a previous project. In reality, the indictment said, none of that was true, and Saunders faces the aggravated ID charges because he allegedly used certain people's names without permission.
A selection board relied on his representations to award him the contract, which paid out in installments by wire transfers with money from the Stimulus Act.
His lawyer, John Disrud, said Saunders will waive his April 2 arraignment and plead not guilty. U.S. Magistrate Judge John Primomo released Saunders on $50,000 unsecured bail because the government did not object to his release.
If convicted of wire fraud, Saunders faces up to 20 years on each count. If convicted of aggravated ID theft, he faces two years on top of what he might get for the wire fraud charges.
The Washington Times reported March 17 that the VA's own records show it made more than $2.2 billion in overpayments in 2012, more than half of what the Navy was asked to cut from its budget as part of the sequester.
gcontreras@express-news.net
Twitter: @gmaninfedland
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