Company charged with defrauding Indian schools

| Friday, April 21, 2006

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WASHINGTON (AP) - A Houston-based networking company was sentenced Thursday to pay $4.6 million for defrauding the U.S. government and American Indian schools in South Dakota.

According to the Department of Justice, Houston-based networking company NextiraOne has pleaded guilty to defrauding the E-Rate program, a government telecommunications subsidy for economically disadvantaged schools, and member schools of the Oglala Nation Educational Coalition on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

The department said the company is charged with inflating equipment prices, submitting fraudulent invoices for payment and failing to install and deliver certain equipment and services originally billed to the E-Rate program.

NextiraOne has agreed to cooperate in an ongoing investigation, the department said, and is ordered to pay a $1.9 million criminal fine. Also, a civil settlement filed Thursday requires the company to forfeit more than $2.6 million in reimbursement for work it has performed at other school districts.

The sentencing took place Thursday before U.S. District Judge Lawrence Piersol in Sioux Falls, S.D.

"These fraudulent schemes rob funds used to assist the neediest schools and libraries across the country," said assistant attorney general Thomas Barnett, who oversees the department's antitrust division.

Including Thursday's sentencing, 10 companies and 11 individuals have been charged as a part of an ongoing investigation into fraud in the E-rate program.

Calls to NextiraOne and the Oglala Sioux Tribe were not immediately returned Thursday.