A former VA Field Examiner and OPM Investigator has been sentenced to 96 months in prison for a string of crimes including wire fraud, mail fraud, financial conflict of interest, theft of public money, and making false statements.
Kenneth Richard Devore, 44, of Jonesborough, Tennessee, was sentenced by the Honorable Pamela L. Reeves on November 5, 2018.
According to evidence presented at trial, in 2015, Devore schemed to defraud an elderly and disabled veteran of over $680,000 while acting as a Field Examiner for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).
Under the VA’s Fiduciary Program, Field Examiners are employed to help protect the financial assets of veterans who are unable to take care of themselves. As such, Field Examiners conduct on-site fact-finding examinations to ascertain the veteran’s income and assets and to observe his mental condition, living arrangement, and social adjustment.
Devore used his position to convince the veteran that he needed a Last Will and Testament, and he then drafted the will and deceptively inserted his own name as the sole beneficiary of the veteran’s financial bank accounts and investments.
As a result of his conduct, Devore was forced to resign from the VA. Shortly thereafter, he applied for a position as an investigator for the National Background Investigations Bureau (NBIB), an agency within the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) that conducts investigations for positions of public trust and security clearances.
Devore lied about his own educational and employment history in his application for the job and security clearance, intentionally withholding that he had been forced to resign from the VA for misconduct and falsely claiming that he had received a college degree from the so-called “Canterbury University.”
Key Facts
- State: Tennessee
- Category: White Collar Crime
- Source: DOJ Press Release â†â€â€
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