Federal indictment puts Apopka man at the center of a $19 million VA fraud case

An Apopka man and five men from other states have been charged in an alleged conspiracy to improperly recruit hundreds of veterans for job training programs.

A federal indictment filed on Thursday in Orlando claims they illegally targeted veterans for their tuition benefits under the Post-9/11 GI Bill.

The five men are from Arizona, Illinois, Missouri, Virginia and California, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Florida. They are charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud and 10 counts each of wire fraud.

The indictment alleges that, between 2019 and 2022, they fraudulently collected more than $19 million in tuition benefits from the U.S. Department to Veterans Affairs.

Prosecutors say their schools illegally paid 38-year-old Kyle B. Kotecha of Apopka about $4 million out of those funds in commission-based payments for recruitment.

As for the veterans, the indictment says "only a small fraction" got any certification in the cyber security field or computer coding languages for which they enrolled. The non-college degree programs charged the VA $15,000 to $23,000 per veteran for courses that ran for eight to 13 weeks.

The veterans' annual benefit was capped at between $24,476 and $26,381 and could be used only in three separate years.

Kotecha has agreed to plead guilty to the conspiracy and is cooperating with prosecutors.

He used the name Veteran Transition Mission, which "per its website appeared to be a non-profit entity committed to helping veterans transition from service," according to the statement of the facts attached to Kotecha's plea agreement.

The statement says Kotecha would enroll the student and typically receive 25% of the tuition collected from the VA.

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