Former Employee of California Trucking School Pleaded Guilty to Grand Theft in Connection with Scheme to Fraudulently Obtain Government Benefits for Veterans

On April 25, 2025, a former employee of Alliance School of Trucking (AST) in Chatsworth, California, pleaded guilty to one count of grand theft. Aaron Solomona, who previously was sentenced in federal court on four counts of wire fraud for the same scheme, pleaded guilty in the Superior Court of California for the County of Los Angeles. According to the criminal complaint, from in or about December 2011 through in or about April 2015, Solomona and co-conspirators defrauded the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) of approximately $4 million in tuition, fee payments, and education benefits by fraudulently recruiting eligible veterans to enroll in an AST trucking program under the incentive that the veterans could collect housing and other educational funds from the VA while never actually attending the program. Several of the veterans that participated in this scheme were Federal Bureau of Prisons employees. The investigation is being conducted by the OIG’s Los Angeles Office, the VA OIG, and the FBI; forensic assistance was provided by the OIG’s Cyber Investigations Office.