Fort Worth VA worker lied about home address to embezzle $50K over 5 years, feds say
An employee at the Fort Worth VA Outpatient Clinic is accused of lying about his home address in order to steal more than $50,000 in travel reimbursements from the clinic, according to federal court documents.
A special agent with the Department of Veteran Affairs, Bryan Sewell, has been investigating Gregory Wind of Fort Worth since October 2017.
Sewell wrote in a criminal complaint that Wind worked in the Travel Benefits Section of the VA and would regularly submit travel reimbursement for travel to and from a home nearly 100 miles away from the clinic. However, Wind’s manager suspected that he lived closer.
Between September 2014 and February 2018, Wind was reimbursed 657 times for travel between the clinic and the residence where he claimed to live in the 100 block of Conrady Road in Windthorst, according to a review of records.
Wind was given $58,003, the document says.
In January 2017 and again in October 2017, Wind was questioned about his address and asked to provide his employer with proof that he lived in Windthorst. Wind provided them two Payless Power documents dated Jan. 27, 2017, and Oct. 20, 2017, the document says.
Sewell wrote that he contacted Payless Power, who said they never provided power to the Conrady address, and that Wind’s account was actually for an apartment in the 200 block of Pennsylvania Avenue in Fort Worth.
Investigators interviewed two different people who had lived at the Conrady address during the time that Wind claimed it was his. Both residents said they had never rented their property and didn’t know Wind. They weren’t able to identify him in photos, the document says.
Sewell then obtained rental lease agreements from 2013 on that show Wind was a lease holder of the Pennsylvania Avenue apartment.
When Sewell and another agent confronted Wind in February, Wind continued to say that he lived in Windthorst. When told that lying to a federal agent is a felony, Wind responded, “I think I probably should talk to somebody” and ended the interview, the document says.
Wind was arrested and is charged with theft of government funds.
This story was originally published December 4, 2018 at 4:10 PM with the headline "Fort Worth VA worker lied about home address to embezzle $50K over 5 years, feds say."
