GI Bill Grift: Six Charged in $20M Veteran Scam

ORLANDO, FL – A brazen scheme to siphon nearly $20 million in GI Bill benefits from veterans has resulted in federal charges against six individuals, the Department of Justice announced today. Zachary Somers Hiscock (41, Arizona), Timothy Slater (66, Illinois), Nikhil Patel (48, Missouri), Gangadhar Bathula (59, Virginia), and Arif Hasan Sayed (54, California) are each facing one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and ten counts of wire fraud. If convicted, each could spend up to 20 years behind bars per count.

The indictment alleges a calculated conspiracy orchestrated by the defendants to exploit the Post-9/11 GI Bill, a program designed to support veterans pursuing education and training. Kyle Blake Kotecha (38, Apopka) has already signed a plea agreement, admitting his role in the scheme. Prosecutors say the group targeted vulnerable veterans, promising cybersecurity and computer coding courses through for-profit schools that were little more than fronts for illicit profit.

Hiscock, Slater, Patel, Bathula, and Sayed operated these schools – ostensibly offering legitimate instruction – across the country, all while knowingly violating VA regulations. Those regulations explicitly prohibit schools from paying recruiters a commission based on the tuition they secure from veterans. But that’s exactly what happened. The defendants allegedly hired Kotecha to aggressively recruit veteran students, paying him roughly 25 percent of the GI Bill benefits the schools received from those students.

The conspiracy didn’t stop at illegal commissions. The indictment details a concerted effort to conceal the arrangement from VA auditors. Defendants allegedly employed coded language, concealed payments, backdated and falsified contracts, and fabricated enrollment records. Some schools even created fake attendance records for non-veteran students to inflate enrollment numbers and legitimize the influx of GI Bill funds. The result? Millions of dollars diverted from those who earned it through service to our nation.

Kotecha’s recruitment machine proved remarkably effective, funneling massive amounts of GI Bill money into schools that had previously seen little to no veteran enrollment. These schools then charged veterans tuition at or near the annual cap of $24,000 for courses that lasted a mere 8 to 13 weeks. The indictment paints a grim picture: a shockingly small fraction of veteran students actually went on to obtain any meaningful certifications from these programs. The total amount of fraudulently obtained GI Bill benefits is alleged to be $19,232,390, with Kotecha agreeing to forfeit $3,965,264.34.

“These charges serve as stark warning to those who would defraud the Post-9/11 GI Bill education benefits program,” stated David Spilker, Special Agent in Charge with the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General’s Southeast Field Office. “The GI Bill has served millions of veterans since World War II and the VA OIG, along with our partners, will aggressively investigate fraud committed against this vital program.” The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorneys Noah P. Dorman and Dana E. Hill. An indictment is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.