Man In $24M GI Bill Fraud Scam With Toms River Woman Get 5 Years

NEWARK, NJ – A Pennsylvania man who conspired with a former college assistant dean from Toms River in a scheme that stole more than $24 million from the Post 9/11 GI Bill was sentenced Monday to 5 years in prison, U.S. Attorney Craig Carpenito said.

David Alvey, 51, previously pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Katharine S. Hayden to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, Carpenito said.

The Post 9/11 GI Bill is a federal education benefits program designed to help veterans who served in the armed forces following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. It pays for veterans’ tuition, housing costs, and other educational expenses as long as their courses meet certain criteria. Because these tuition benefits are paid by the United States directly to the school, all entities involved in developing and administering the courses must be fully disclosed to the United States in order to assess the courses for approval.

From 2009 through August 2013, Alvey – founder and president of Ed4Mil – conspired with Lisa DiBisceglie and Helen Sechrist, both of whom also have pleaded guilty to a similar wire fraud conspiracy count, and others in the scheme.

DiBisceglie, of Toms River, then an associate dean at Caldwell University, helped Alvey get approval from Caldwell’s administration to develop and administer a series of non-credit online courses for veterans in Caldwell’s name. In order for the courses to be eligible for education benefits under the Post-9/11 GI Bill, DiBisceglie, Alvey, and others prepared and submitted an application with the Veterans Administration stating that the courses were developed, taught, and administered by Caldwell faculty and met Caldwell’s stringent educational standards. The courses were subsequently approved, and Alvey, Sechrist, and others aggressively marketed the courses to veterans who were eligible to receive the benefits.

However, Caldwell did not participate in developing or teaching the online courses. The veterans were instead enrolled in online correspondence courses developed and administered by a sub-contractor of Ed4Mil. Neither Ed4Mil nor its sub-contractor were disclosed to the government, and neither were eligible to receive Post-9/11 GI Bill benefits.

Alvey and others concealed the true nature of the courses from the government and the veterans who enrolled in the courses. Thousands of veterans enrolled in the online courses believing they were taking courses from Caldwell. The scheme caused the United States to pay more than $24 million in tuition benefits under the Post-9/11 GI Bill.

DiBisceglie and Secrist are scheduled to be sentenced Tuesday, Carpenito's office said.

"Today’s sentence is an appropriate punishment for a man who spent years cheating our veterans by stealing millions in taxpayer funds reserved for their education," Carpenito said. "Instead of receiving the quality instruction they were promised, thousands of service men and women recruited by Ed4Mil were enrolled in unapproved online courses without their knowledge. No veteran should be treated this way."

In addition to the prison term, Hayden sentenced Alvey to three years of supervised release and ordered restitution in the amount of $24,024,465.65.

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