Businessman From Kansas, Imprisoned For Defrauding E-Rate
The proprietor of a trio of companies which provided computer services has been penalised to 57 months of imprisonment due to his contribution to committing a fraud violating the E – Rate program that endows the libraries and schools built for the upliftment of poor communities and also presented a falsified statement to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
The former President and owner of Serious ISP, Elephantine and Myco Technologies, Leonard Douglas LaDuron, was asked to pay the penalty of US$238,607 to the State via the District Court for the State of Kansas, as decreed by Judge Kathryn Vratil on Wednesday.
LaDuron was declared guilty on June 29 on two accounts, one of conspiracy and the other of making a false statement.
The Accomplices in the fraud, Jay Soled and Benjamin Rowner who formerly owned the DeltaNet, along with LaDuron directed the E –Rate concordat to the companies owned by them and designed a scheme to dupe the E –Rating program by giving a falsified statement to a non-profit organization called the Universal Service Administrative Co., which runs the E-Rate program said the Department of Justice.
The conspiracy lasted from 1999 to 2003 approximately and prevented approximately 10 schools across the country from required funds, informed the Department of Justice.
Also in July 2003, LaDuron offered a falsified statement to the Lawrence- Douglas County Housing Authority, which is the Housing and Urban Development’s local administrative body for the Housing Choice Voucher Program in Lawrence, Kansas, on this he counterfeited an employee’s signatures and also submitted a fallacious an avocation affidavit form, as made public by the Department of Justice.
The E – Rate program is a part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 created by the U.S. Congress to provide for the economically backward libraries and schools. The financial needs of the applicant schools were met by paying 10 to 90 percent of the cost for the telecommunication services and Internet Access besides the communications and other internal computer networks.
Soled and Rowner accepted that they were guilty of conspiring against this State on 10th July 2008; they await the sentence which is due on 4th February. LaDuron’s Mother also accepted making a false statement to the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation and was ordered to pay a penalty of $3,743 on 13th October.