In a yearslong conspiracy involving bizarre and fraudulent injury claims such as holiday ladder falls and horse buckings, a former Navy chief petty officer pleaded guilty to conspiring to bilk the government out of $2 million through a program intended for severely injured service members, according to a Thursday Department of Justice press release.
Christopher Toups, an ex-sailor who lives in Georgia, personally received $400,000 in the scam, which involved more than a half dozen people, including a Navy doctor and a nurse.
The group targeted the Traumatic Servicemembers Group Life Insurance Program, a compensation program for injured troops. Toups, who appears to be a central figure in the scam, helped take advantage of that system by creating a paper trail for fake injuries, according to court records.
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Toups is scheduled to be sentenced in February and faces a maximum of 20 years in prison, three years of probation, and an order to repay the total $2 million back to the Pentagon, according to his Thursday guilty plea.
“Fraudulently filing claims for unearned TSGLI benefits diverts compensation from deserving service members who suffered serious and debilitating injuries while on active duty,” said Rebeccalynn Staples, an agent with the Department of Veterans Affairs' Office of Inspector General, in the Justice…
