Cleophat Tanis, Mail Fraud, Florida 2012

Florida Nursing School President Sentenced for Mail Fraud

Cleophat Tanis, 52, of Naples, Florida, was sentenced today to one month in prison and seven months of home detention for his role in a scheme that caused the District of Columbia’s Department of Disability Services to be defrauded out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Tanis conspired with Eugenia Rapp, 50, of Woodbridge, Virginia, a former D.C. government employee, who pled guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud in July, and who will be sentenced on April 1, 2020.

The scheme involved Rapp working as a vocational rehabilitation counselor with the District of Columbia’s Department of Disability Services, Rehabilitation Services Administration (“DCRSA”). The DCRSA Vocational Rehabilitation program provides vocational rehabilitation benefits, like college tuition, to qualified individuals with disabilities to help them prepare for and engage in gainful employment.

From 2012 through 2016, Rapp conspired with others to defraud the D.C. government by having benefits awarded to individuals who were not eligible to receive them. In her role as a vocational rehabilitation counselor, Rapp was responsible for determining whether an individual was eligible to receive the benefits.

Tanis worked with Rapp to get his nursing school added as an approved vendor with the D.C. government. During that process, Tanis told Rapp that his school was struggling financially and asked her to use her position to help pay tuition for students at his school. Tanis knew that students had to be D.C. residents in order to be eligible to receive benefits, but worked with Rapp to get $47,895 in benefits awarded to five students at his school who were not D.C. residents and who had no familial relationship to Rapp.

In addition to his prison sentence, Tanis was ordered to pay $47,895 in restitution, an identical amount in a forfeiture money judgement, and a $10,000 fine. The U.S. Attorney’s Office commended the work of those who investigated the case from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General, and the District of Columbia’s Office of Inspector General.

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