A 29-year-old Aurora man appeared in U.S. District Court on charges of bribing an official and defrauded the Army out of $125,000 in phony military recruitment bonuses.
Jaycee L. Collier had been indicted by a federal grand jury in Denver on April 8 on five counts of wire fraud and 13 counts of bribery of a public official in connection with a military recruiting program.
Collier appeared Friday in U.S. District Court in Denver, according to Jeff Dorschner, spokesman for U.S. Attorney John F. Walsh. Collier was later released on a $10,000 bond.
The U.S. Army Reserve in Fort Bragg, N.C., had entered a contract with Packaging Brokers, Inc. to administer a recruiting program, according to court records. Up to $2,000 was offered to reserve soldiers for every soldier they helped recruit into the reserves.
Collier was a civilian Department of Defense human resources employee at the Military Entrance Processing Station in Denver. He processed enlistment packets and was ineligible for recruitment bonuses, court records indicate.
The federal employee allegedly received $28,000 in kickbacks while running the fraud scheme between March of 2009 and July of 2012.
Collier allegedly used names and passwords of 65 eligible Army reserve soldiers, who joined the reserves. Collier allegedly had current reserve soldiers fraudulently fill out forms indicating they had referred the recruits. Reserve officers received the wired bonuses and paid Collier a $500 kickback, according to Dorschner’s news release.
Collier faces up to 20 years in a federal prison and a $250,000 fine on each of the five wire fraud counts and up to 15 years in prison and a $250,000 for each of the 13 bribery counts, Dorschner indicated.
This case was investigated by the U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Division and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service, he said.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206, denverpost.com/coldcases or twitter.com/kmitchelldp
