一名堪萨斯州的建筑高管因“租用vet”和“租用少数”计划被判处监狱，他用来赢得数百份价值3.46亿美元的政府合同，旨在为少数民族或资深的小型企业提供3.46亿美元他没有资格。

On Jan. 5, U.S. District Court Judge Roseann Ketchmark sentenced 45-year-old Matthew C. McPherson, of Olathe, Kansas, to two years and four months in federal prison without parole. McPherson also forfeited more than $5.5 million, his share of the proceeds of the scheme, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Missouri announced. The sentencing followed McPherson’s 2019 guilty plea to conspiracy to commit wire fraud and major program fraud.

齐森建筑Co., was formed in July 2009 with an African-American service-disabled veteran, Stephon Ziegler, as the nominal owner. However, it was actually McPherson, the president of Topeka-based McPherson Contractors, and co-conspirators Patrick Dingle and Matthew Torgeson, who ran Zieson Construction, authorities say.

Under their control from 2009 to 2018, Zieson Construction was awarded about 199 federal contracts set aside for small minority- or veteran-owned businesses that the company’s actual owners weren’t entitled to win, the U.S. Attorney's Office says. The government paid the company about $335 million, and the conspirators used false invoices to take about $4.2 million each from Zieson.

到2014年,当局说Zieson增长太big to compete for the small business contracts, so the conspirators used a Native American employee, Rustin Simon, to set up another business, Simcon Corp., in Missouri. They used Simcon to compete for more contracts they weren’t actually qualified for, and the company won a $4.4-million Air Force contract and $6.9-million Army contract in 2016.

美国检察官特蕾莎·摩尔（Teresa Moore）在一份声明中说：“这位承包商不仅欺骗了政府，而且作弊是为了获得应由残疾退伍军人和少数民族所有者领导的公司的合同。”“他的贪婪和欺骗使他以牺牲残疾的退伍军人和少数派所有者为代价来丰富自己。”新利luck

A representative for McPherson Contractors, now doing business as MCP Group, declined to comment on McPherson’s current status with the company. Paperwork filed with the Kansas Secretary of State lists McPherson as the company’s president as of March 2021, the most recent documentation available.

丁格（Dingle）在2020年9月认罪，要求串谋实施电线和重大计划欺诈，并正在等待判决。在另一个案件中，他还承认提交虚假的纳税申报表。托格森于2019年去世。

Ziegler pleaded guilty in May 2019 to making a false statement to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. He’s scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 20, 2022. Simon pleaded guilty in June 2019 to two counts of making material false statements to the Small Business Administration. He’s awaiting sentencing.

A 2019Government Accountability Office(GAO) report found that contractors with opaque ownership structures posed a risk for programs promoting government contracts with small businesses owned by minorities, women, service-disabled veterans or other economically or socially disadvantaged individuals. GAO identified 20 cases of Defense Dept. contractors or contractor employees being convicted, pleading guilty or settling charges related to such fraud in order to falsely qualify for such contracts. In 2021, a后续报告stated that the Defense Dept. was taking steps to assess risks related to contractor ownership fraud.