By For all you idiots out there trying to commit housing fraud, don’t do it, especially if you put San Francisco as your home of record:
An Army staff sergeant was sentenced to jail and loss of rank and pay Friday after a military jury found him guilty of bilking the government out of thousands of dollars in housing allowance.
Staff Sgt. Lamont Barefield-Peace, 35, was sentenced to 179 days in jail, reduction from pay grade E-6 to E-4 and forfeiture of $2,218.50 for two months following his court-martial at Camp Henry in Daegu.
He was support operations material readiness sergeant with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 19th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) in Daegu.
He had been charged with larceny and making false official statements.
The jury convicted Barefield-Peace of swindling the government out of about $55,000 in housing allowance payments by claiming in paperwork that his family lived in San Francisco, although they actually lived in Killeen, Texas, officials said. [Stars & Stripes]
Obviously this guy hasn’t been reading the ROK Drop where I have consistently posted articles on how Army investigators are continuing to catch people for BAH fraud. What I do find interesting about this is that the judge allowed him to stay in the Army as an E-4 when often times these people are given bad conduct discharges from the Army.
7:02 am on February 8th, 2009 1
10:24 am on February 8th, 2009 2
Was he an idiot? Because to put San Francisco down for BAH you have to be an idiot. I can remember the finance inprocessing brief where they specific warned against BAH fraud and putting San Francisco on your paperwork was pretty much an open invitation to get investigated.
11:01 am on February 8th, 2009 3
Blinded by $$$$
7:04 pm on February 8th, 2009 4
I think $$$ blinded him, he didn't come off as an idiot, he new his job and did it well. But who knows…. Just shocked me to see his name there…
10:05 am on July 5th, 2009 5
Thats how we do it down in phila, u have to lie, steal and cheat to get what u want at times. So what he did was not as bad as what our former prsident BUSH did to all us americans.
3:15 pm on July 5th, 2009 6
Yeah that Bush guy was REAL bad. Good thing we have a real community organizer in the White House now.
Bushitler-Bushitler-Global Warming-Gum Disease-Odd socks in the dryer-All of life's bad things.
11:46 am on July 7th, 2009 7
[DELETED BY ADMIN] Please do not use the n-word on this blog.
9:28 am on July 11th, 2009 8
For all you idiots out there who read that crazy post that a drunk friend wrote under my old log in name *Don Gambino* which is ray, don't beleave that shit. Work for what you want, live ur live to the fullest.
6:45 pm on May 25th, 2010 9
Yeah – list San Fran as the location of your dependents and get an automatic investigation w/possible conviction, but list…oh – say…Hawaii, where you get not only very high BAH, but COLA too…and doesn't matter that the marriage is on paper only and you've never even lived with this person; even have CID investigate for over a year, and what happens? **Nothing** – - you make off with over $100,000 of uncle's funds – - great way to make a nice little nest-egg if you ask me. Guess I needed to try harder when I filled out my paperwork…
5:20 pm on February 23rd, 2011 10
He is an Liar and a cheater!!! I know first hand!
6:27 pm on February 23rd, 2011 11
Funny How "Don Gambino" knows where he is from. hmmmmm?
3:36 am on February 24th, 2011 12
As Ron White says: "You can't fix stupid."
7:02 am on February 24th, 2011 13
"Army Staff Sergeant Jailed for Fraud"
for San Francisco was a facade.
It wasn't home then,
but it will feel like home when,
his cellmate is blowing his wad.
8:43 am on February 24th, 2011 14
Lol @ Chickenhead… maybe?
11:49 am on February 24th, 2011 15
Family in Texas and a jilted juicy @10 ?
10:38 am on February 25th, 2011 16
@ joe c ya know it!
9:29 pm on March 12th, 2011 17
OK, i have a question, one guy in my unit claims his wife lives in a High BAH Area, gets the BAH for her there & gets seperation pay. He has a barraks room assigned to him and he rents a place here in germany where she lives w/ him and is president of the FRG. Is he commiting fraud? And if it is who do i report this too without it getting covered up?
11:50 am on March 13th, 2011 18
Jerry Rich #17. I don't know if fraud is being committed or not. Why don't you tell your 1SG that you would like to see your company commander. Tell your CO the whole story & either he/she can start an investigation if need be or maybe point you to go to finance, CID, or whatever. If there is fraud going on & you DON'T report it then your a$$ is in a sling for not reporting a crime. If no crime is happening then after an investigation the matter will be dropped. DON'T WAIT, tell your PLT Sgt TOMORROW, Monday that you need to see your CO.
12:01 pm on March 13th, 2011 19
I'd keep it quiet though. Even if you are right as rain, tattle tales are almost never good for unit cohesiveness.
12:38 pm on March 13th, 2011 20
@17,
Depends on the situation. BAH and OHA are different allowances for different things. BAH is supposed to cover the host of your residence inside the USA, this is typically an apartment rental but can sometimes be a mortgage payment. You are entitled to this no matter where the Army stations you. OHA is supposed to cover the cost of your lodging while stationed overseas. If your authorized off base accommodations then you will get OHA to cover that. The typical scenario where these play in is as follows,
Service member stationed inside Korea and living on the economy, they are entitled to OHA. Service member maintains a residence inside the USA, he is authorized BAH for that area. Usually his family is living there and its a rental. If his family moves away then their no longer renting it and thus he's no longer entitled to that BAH. If its a mortgage then the service member may still receive BAH for that mortgage as long as their stationed overseas. If the service member returns to a CONUS duty station then their BAH will change to whatever their new area is regardless of the cost of their mortgage.
The only real requirement is that a residence is maintained usually with a dependent living in it. I'm not 100% positive on the dependent requirement if its a soldier owned residence (mortgage) vs a rental but I am positive that "dependent" can include any family member from either side provided the soldier can claim that their the primary care giver for that family member. If you can claim them on your taxes they will qualify as a dependent. The soldier's wife could easily have her parents or some other member of her family staying there without a full time job who is listed as a dependent. The situation can get pretty complicated, this is where you need the legal and financial folks to step in and give their judgment.
12:48 pm on March 13th, 2011 21
This guy sounds like a smart guy with a good grip on financial theory and practice.
I'm sure he would recognize that a hundred dollars a week provides a good return for your continued silence.
10:47 pm on March 13th, 2011 22
@17 – If his wife is living with him in Germany and is receiving BAH for a zip code in the US than that is BAH fraud. Now if she is just visiting for a few weeks before returning to the US to stay at that home than it would not. But the fact you said that she is leading the FRG sounds like she is living in Germany permanently.
The separation pay sounds fishy to because you only get that when involuntarily separated from your family. The fact he is in Germany means he had an option to bring his family and did not. This would not entitle him to separation pay. Plus the separation pay only starts 30 days after you last seen your spouse. If his wife is with him in Germany and is receiving separation pay this is illegal:
http://www.armytimes.com/benefits/pay/military_ot…
The people to report it to would be CID. They should make quick work of whether the Soldier is committing fraud or not.
What I don't understand is how the unit leadership isn't detecting this on the unit finance report that the commander and 1SG should review each month? I recommend you go talk to your 1SG before calling CID.
11:43 pm on March 13th, 2011 23
@22,
BAH isn't provided for a "wife" its provided to pay for CONUS housing while the service member is stationed OCONUS. Any dependent can be living there (mortgages get into some weird rules though), a kid a brother, anyone who is legally a dependent of the service member qualifies. The general rule is you can never have more then one BAH and it must be for an area that you have a residence in. BAH fraud is when your claiming BAH for one area while maintaining a residence in another area. In the situation provided above it would be very easy for the service member to still be maintaining a residence at that exact location, bills and everything. He would be getting paid BAH for the area that he is maintaining that residence in while stationed OCONUS. While their OCONUS he would be provided OHA if living off base, otherwise he would be furnished government quarters (barracks). Receiving OHA does not preclude you from receiving BAH, receiving BAH is not contingent on you having a wife and her living somewhere. The moment the soldier gets assigned to another CONUS location their BAH would immediately be changed to what their duty location was. This rule is written this way as to not penalize soldiers who come up on overseas assignments by depraving them on the ability to pay their bills. I actually know several LTC's who are not married yet receive BAH for their stateside residences while their stationed OCONUS.
12:03 am on March 14th, 2011 24
@22 I just finished reading what you said about family separate pay and its very incorrect.
"Plus the separation pay only starts 30 days after you last seen your spouse."
Complete bullsh!t. Your spouse stepping into country to see you for two weeks wouldn't alter FSP the slightest. It starts 30 days after you get to your unaccompanied duty station regardless of when you last saw your spouse.
"If his wife is with him in Germany and is receiving separation pay this is illegal"
Again bullsh!t, if he's on an unaccompanied assignment while having dependents then he'll receive it. Where his wife chooses to sleep for the night has zero bearing on FSP or anything else for that matter.
Thinking over this situation I can see ~exactly~ how this could happen in a completely legal way. Soldier + dependent are living in a CONUS location during his CONUS duty tour. Soldier comes up on orders for OCONUS duty assignment and opts to go unaccompanied (non-command sponsored). Soldier arrives at OCONUS location and is assigned government provided quarters (barracks or BEQ). Soldiers wife chooses to come over on their own without government assistance and rents an apartment in the local area near the soldiers OCONUS duty location. Everything she's doing is out of her own pocket, the government is not furnishing anything. He must maintain his government provided quarters and must also maintain his CONUS residence that the government is providing BAH for. This is legal.
Where you made your mistake is you hinged the BAH rate on where his wife decided to plant her civilian constitutionally protected tush at. The US Military couldn't give a damn if she lived in their CONUS residence, in Europe or in BFE, all they care about is that he is actively maintaining a residence at the location he specified for BAH and that the US government didn't provide any form of transportation for the wife in question. She could be standing outside the general's house jumping up and down, it wouldn't matter as the Military still considers her to be living in the CONUS residence. The military never paid for her tickets or to transport his household goods, their still in the states in the residence he's maintaining.
This fact is very important because we run into it whenever we ETS from the US Military while stationed OCONUS. Because I ETS'd while stationed in Korea and never used government funded transportation my residence is still considered to be in the states. Hence I don't qualify as a "ordinary resident" of South Korea.
1:59 am on March 14th, 2011 25
someotherguy you need to chill out and read what I said. I am referring to the wife of the soldier in Germany. I know full well BAH isn't limited to just wives.
Let me clarify my statement so it is easier to understand. If the wife is living in Germany and is not maintaining a residence in the US but is using the BAH for the zip code in the US to pay for the residence in Germany that is BAH fraud. When I moved my wife non-command sponsored to Korea I received a lower BAH rate than what I was getting in the US. If I did not switch over to the Korea BAH rate and continued to receive the BAH rate for the state side location and pocketed the difference I would have been committing fraud. I don't know if that is what is going on in this Germany case.
The wife in Germany could be paying rent for a home in the US and is doing an extended stay in Germany and are paying their residence in Germany out of their own pocket than that would not be fraud.
As far as family separation allowance the soldier has to be involuntarily separated from his spouse. I'm not sure about Germany because he had the option to bring his wife. On deployment after 30 days that is when the family separation begins. That is what I was referring to in the above comment. On deployment when you go home on R&R they do not take the family separation away. It stops after you get back from deployment.
If the wife is living in Germany and not maintaining a residence in the US and drawing family separation it sounds fishy.
That is why I recommended the commenter check with his 1SG before going to CID because there could be a logical explanation.
5:48 am on March 14th, 2011 26
Someotherguy, you're lost.
6:46 am on March 14th, 2011 27
He is not lost I just had to clarify my comment better. However, like said before discussing with the 1SG the situation is the way to go before taking it any higher.
8:07 am on March 14th, 2011 28
To avoid committing fraud, when you sign a document, make sure that every statement is true.
8:19 am on March 14th, 2011 29
Chain-of-command – it's there for a reason. Use it.
Unless you have reason to believe that people in your chain of command are complicit in the alleged fraud – you're asking for big trouble by going straight to CID.
Suppose everything is on the up and up? Then what?
You're gonna find yourself in your commander's office – along with your 1SG, PSG, and squad leader – having to explain yourself.
And then for the next several months, your going to be on everyone in your chain's sh!t list. Not to mention that you'll be tagged as the unit narc.
11:37 am on March 21st, 2011 30
What happens if you Commanding Officer approve the location BAH after the required paper work turn in. Because my family live in California now, that is my original home of record does that mean i'm automatically look at committing fraud ?
9:05 am on July 12th, 2011 31
[...] women did not live with the sailors and the BAH money the sailors received was pocketed. Another involved a soldier listing his residence in a different city in order to collect a higher BAH rate. These examples are [...]