Two people who worked as managers of a now-defunct employment placement agency have pleaded guilty in connection with a fraudulent overbilling scheme to place clients into jobs they already held, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office announced Thursday.
Jorge Manuel Hernandez, 58, and Benjamin Brus, 43, are expected to be sentenced July 14 to 100 hours of community service at a homeless shelter and three years probation in connection with their guilty pleas Wednesday to one count of grand theft, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Hernandez is also expected to be ordered to pay more than $17,700 in restitution to the county, while Brus is expected to pay $4,800, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Co-defendant Salvador Romero Velasquez — the 81-year-old former chief executive officer of the placement agency — is awaiting a hearing April 1 to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to require him to stand trial on more than a dozen counts, including embezzlement, misappropriation of public funds and grand theft.
The three worked for the now-defunct East San Gabriel Valley Human Services Consortium, also known as LA Works, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
Hernandez and Brus directed employees and others to back-date public records to try to make it appear that new nurse graduates enrolled by LA Works into government-funded, on-the-job training programs at two local hospitals were unemployed at the time they were placed, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
The workers had already been hired by the hospitals, according to Deputy District Attorney Marian Thompson.
Velasquez is also accused of convincing LA Works board members to rehire him as an employee after his retirement in 2003, which allowed him to continue to receive benefits including performance incentives and health insurance, according to the District Attorney’s Office.
He could face up to 13 years and eight months in state prison if convicted as charged, according to the District Attorney’s Office.