Calimesa Man Sentenced By Federal Judge In Fraud Scheme

CALIMESA, CA — A Riverside County man who engaged in a years-long scheme to defraud the U.S. Veterans Administration, stealing over $100 million by falsifying records to make it appear veterans were attending educational programs that they weren't, was sentenced Monday to a year in federal prison.

Philip Abod, 57, of Calimesa was sentenced during a hearing at U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C. In addition to the prison term, Abod was ordered to pay $3.4 million in restitution to the VA.

It was unclear whether he reached a plea agreement with the government or had been convicted of fraud in a jury trial.

His co-defendants, 54-year-old Michael Bostock of Nampa, Idaho, and 48- year-old Eric Bostock of Riverside, were sentenced in separate hearings. Michael Bostock received a five-year prison term in June, and his younger brother received a year-long term last month.

The trio were associated with California Technical Academy, which has since shut its doors. There were several campuses in Riverside County, and Michael Bostock was the founder and chief executive officer.

According to federal prosecutors, between January 2012 and June 2022, Abod and his cohorts falsely represented to the VA that veterans were enrolled at CTA, requiring access to their educational benefits. In fact, the parties whose credentials were submitted to the government were not attending classes and never completed the course work that the defendants claimed they did.

"To conceal their scheme, Abod and his co-conspirators falsified veterans' contact information by substituting phone numbers that Abod and his co-conspirators controlled to ensure that regulators could not contact the veterans," the Department of Justice said in a statement. "When regulators called the falsified phone numbers to obtain information about the school, Abod and his co-conspirators impersonated students."

It was estimated that over a 10-year span, the defendants fraudulently obtained $32 million in covered tuition directly from the VA, as well as $72 million in other "education-related government benefits," the DOJ said.

The case was investigated by the VA Office of Inspector General before being turned over to the DOJ.