Wednesday, June 26, 2024
A Killeen couple was recently sentenced to prison in a federal court in Waco for operating a fraudulent rideshare company for soldiers at Fort Cavazos.
The U.S. Department of Justice said in a press release that Kevin Romulus Pelayo, 45, and his wife, Cristine Furio Fredericks, 40, defrauded the Army’s Mass Transportation Benefit Program (MTBP) by illegally obtaining the personally identifiable information of more than 800 soldiers to sign them up for the program without their knowledge.
Pelayo and Fredericks co-owned and operated the rideshare company, Soldiers Vanpools LLC, according to court documents. Funded by the MTBP, the company claimed to shuttle military personnel to and from Fort Cavazos from Jan. 1, 2014, through June 10, 2020.
The couple submitted the names, social security numbers, and other identifying information of active-duty soldiers to the MTBP on a monthly basis from 2014 to 2020, falsely claiming that the soldiers were active participants in the rideshare program.
The MTBP provides funding to help soldiers or federal employees with transportation costs to and from work.
Pelayo and Fredericks purchased vans, SUVs, and other vehicles to convince the MTBP that they were operating a legitimate business as well as transporting the riders they claimed in their scheme.
The release states that the couple also spent the millions of dollars in funds they received from the illegitimate operation on real estate, personal vehicles, and other property. They purchased a total of 43 vehicles, 129 luxury purses and jewelry items, and 12 real properties in Bell County and Coryell County.
The Killeen Daily Herald reported in 2021 that both Pelayo and Fredericks previously served in the Army. According to the article, Pelayo, who was a platoon sergeant at Fort Cavazos, used his access to the personnel records of soldiers under his command to sign soldiers up for the transportation program. Fredericks had allegedly worked for Army human resources, the report says.
The couple originally pleaded guilty in June 2021, admitting they had provided false documentation regarding their rideshare company to fraudulently collect MTBP funds, per a news release distributed by the Department of Justice in 2021.
Pelayo was sentenced to 36 months in prison for one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and two counts of engaging in monetary transactions in criminally derived property. Fredericks was sentenced to five years of probation for two counts of engaging in monetary transactions in criminally derived property.
The IRS Criminal Investigation and the Department of the Army Criminal Investigation Division investigated the case.
