The Largest GI Bill Fraud Ever: $105 Million

California Technical Academy’s CEO pleaded guilty in the largest Post-9/11 GI Bill fraud case on record — nearly $105M lost, fake attendance and grades, and owners impersonating their own students on the phone with regulators.

From January 2012 through June 2022, Bostock and co-conspirators made false representations to the VA about veterans’ enrollment in approved courses, class attendance and grades at California Technical Academy’s three locations near Los Angeles and San Diego. Over $32 million in tuition was paid to the school for about 1,793 veterans, and over $72 million more in education benefits paid out on those enrollments.

They falsified course-completion records to make it appear veterans finished programs they had not completed. To conceal the scheme, they replaced veterans’ contact information with phone numbers they themselves controlled, so regulators could not reach real students.

When regulators called those numbers, the conspirators impersonated the students. Bostock pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The Justice Department calls it the largest Post-9/11 GI Bill fraud case in its history.

"in the department’s largest Post-9/11 GI Bill fraud case"
— U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs

Source: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Public Affairs. Case file in the VA Fraud case files — part of the VA Fraud record. Cases are published as the courts decided them; amounts are stated as the Justice Department states them (billed, stolen, or ordered in restitution, as labeled).