'Bogus' day care providers in California stole $10 million meant for low-income families, police say: ‘The game is over’

“These fraudsters may have criminally gamed the system before. But today, the game is over,” U.S. Attorney Adam Gordon for the Southern District of California said in a DOJ news release.

According to the DOJ, although the 12 cases were unrelated, the alleged fraud “was essentially the same,” the release says.

Assistant U.S. Attorney General Colin McDonald told the San Diego Union-Tribune in an interview that fraud schemes can be explained through word of mouth and passed along, but such actions may not meet the legal parameters of conspiracy.

Licensed operators

The individuals were each licensed by the state to operate a home child care facility, the DOJ says, as well as registered with the Child Development Associates (CDA) and the YMCA “to provide subsidized child care to eligible families.”

Federal funding for child care for low-income families is distributed to the state by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In San Diego County, Child Development Associates (CDA) and the YMCA, as well as the county, administer the funding.

The DOJ release alleges that the individuals “knowingly submitted false attendance records claiming they provided child care on dates and at times when they did not.”

Child care providers submit their monthly attendance records to the YMCA or CDA and are paid directly.

“CDA and the YMCA relied on those fraudulent records and issued payments with federal funds intended to pay for child care actually provided to low-income families,” the DOJ says.

The DOJ release noted that the attendance records “must be signed by both the provider and parent under penalty of perjury and include the dates and times children are in care.”

The Union-Tribune reported that, at a news conference announcing the charges, prosecutors did not address whether the falsified attendance records contained parent signatures.