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Former associate director of Illinois VA facility sentenced for defrauding VA and Small Business Administration

By  |  March 7, 2012

U.S. District Judge Milton I. Shadur has sentenced William J. Brandt to 60 months in prison for conspiracy and wire fraud. Brandt was the associate director of the VA Consolidated Mail Outpatient Pharmacy in Hines, Illinois from 1996 until April 2007. His wife, Esperanza A. Brandt, was sentenced to 24 months of probation. In addition, the Brandts and their temporary staffing company, Pronto Staffing Inc., must pay $400,000 in restitution, jointly and severally. 

The Brandts had created Pronto Staffing in 2000, to provide temporary pharmacists to the Outpatient Pharmacy. Pronto sought SBA certification and agreed to let another company use Pronto’s SBA status to bid on contracts. William Brandt also secretly agreed to increase charges billed to the VA for certain Pronto pharmacists, thereby depriving the VA of honest services. The Brandts and Pronto Staffing had pleaded guilty to the charges on May 9, 2009.

Full content: DOJ Press Release