Fraud At Philly VA Lands HVAC Contractor In Prison

PHILADELPHIA — A former contactor with the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Philadelphia was sentenced to prison time and ordered to pay restitution after being convicted of defrauding the facility of more than half a million dollars.

Federal authorities said Ahmed Hassan, 71, of Collegeville, was sentenced to 64 months in prison and three years of supervised release for defrauding the VA of more than $500,000.

Hassan was also ordered to pay $565,058.70 in restitution, with $150,000 of that restitution due in 30 days, and a $2,200 special assessment.

Hassan was charged by indictment in April 2021. After a one-week trial in October 2024, a federal jury convicted him of 22 counts of wire fraud for misusing his VA position to steal from the agency.

Hassan was a trusted supervisory engineer at the VA Medical Center in Philadelphia.

In that position, Hassan was responsible for all mechanical and large HVAC systems at the Medical Center and was further charged with overseeing and implementing contracts in his area of responsibility.

From about 2013 through October 2017, Hassan schemed to defraud the VA by drafting and submitting for payment, false invoices of a shell company called HT Mechanical.

But unbeknownst to management, and in violation of Hassan’s duties to the VA, HT Mechanical was a fraudulent entity that Hassan had secretly set up with his then-paramour, Lynn Hanrahan — a social worker with no knowledge of, or expertise in, HVAC or mechanical systems — in order to defraud the VA.

Hanrahan was charged in a related scheme, pleaded guilty, and was sentenced on Jan. 8.

For years, Hassan made up fake work, drafted false invoices on HT Mechanical letterhead, submitted them for payment to the VA under the VA purchase card program, and lied to the VA, claiming that the work had been done, when the so-called jobs did not exist, and no work was performed.

After the VA made payment to HT Mechanical based on Hassan’s lies, his paramour returned the payments to the defendant, either by check or by giving Hassan envelopes of cash.