NEW YORK — Officials announced today the arrest of Evette Merced, Darryl Harrison, Siul Celeste, Jeanette Arizaga, Yesenia Adames, Renetta Edwards, And Jefferson Simbanamuzo, all current members of the New York Army National Guard, in connection with a scheme to obtain fraudulent recruiting bonuses.
FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Diego Rodriguez said: “Those charged today, in one form or another, took advantage of an Army National Guard incentive program established to encourage soldiers to recruit civilians into the service. While some of the defendants blatantly lied about signing up new recruits, others, already serving as recruiters, we’re altogether ineligible for payment by the program. This scheme resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses to the government. ..”
According to the allegations in the Complaint unsealed today in Manhattan federal court:
In September 2005, the Army National Guard established a recruiting bonus program, referred to as the Guard Recruiting Assistance Program (“G-RAP”), and administered by a private company, Document and Packaging Broker, Inc. (“Docupak”). The G-RAP was designed to offer referral bonus payments to Army National Guard soldiers who were not otherwise involved in Army National Guard recruitment efforts for civilians whom the soldiers successfully convinced to serve in the Army National Guard. A participating soldier, also known as a Recruiting Assistant (“RA”), could receive up to $2,000 in bonus payments for referring another individual to join. To participate in the program, soldiers were required to establish an online account in their name to record their referral and recruitment efforts. The RA would input the personal identifying information of each recruit into the account. Based on certain milestones achieved by the referred soldier, a participating soldier could then receive payment through direct deposit into the participating soldier’s designated bank account. Soldiers who were themselves serving as paid recruiters for the Army National Guard as part of the National Guard’s standard recruitment program were not eligible to participate in the G-RAP or to receive a referral bonus payment, as the G-RAP was intended to be a supplement to the National Guard’s standard recruiting program.
Beginning in 2007, MERCED and HARRISON, who then served as full-time salaried recruiters for the Army National Guard, abused their positions as officers by providing the personal identifying information of potential soldiers to CELESTE, ARIZAGA, ADAMES, and EDWARDS, in exchange for thousands of dollars in kickbacks. CELESTE, ARIZAGA, ADAMES, and EDWARDS then used their respective online RA accounts to falsely claim that they were responsible for referring those soldiers to the New York Army National Guard. After making those false claims, CELESTE, ARIZAGA, ADAMES, and EDWARDS received referral bonus payments totaling over $62,000 from the G-RAP and kicked back a significant portion of those payments to MERCED and HARRISON.
In a similar but separate scheme, SIMBANAMUZO, a current NYPD police officer, used his online RA account to falsely claim that he was responsible for referring soldiers to the New York Army National Guard whose information he had obtained from various paid recruiters.
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