This was a joint investigation with the State of Florida Department of Economic Opportunity and the North Miami Beach Police Department. United States v. Romario Mathieu and James St. Louis (S.D. Florida) Operator of National Vocation Group Job-Staffing Company Sentenced for Wire Fraud On July 2, 2018, Ahmad McCormick was sentenced to 36 months in prison for his role in a scheme to fraudulently collect payments for fake Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) training certificates. A second defendant, Erik Powell, pled guilty to wire fraud on December 11, 2017, for his role in the scheme.

This was a joint investigation with the State of Florida Department of Economic Opportunity and the North Miami Beach Police Department. United States v. Romario Mathieu and James St. Louis (S.D. Florida)

 Operator of National Vocation Group Job-Staffing Company Sentenced for Wire Fraud

On July 2, 2018, Ahmad McCormick was sentenced to 36 months in prison for his role in a scheme to fraudulently collect payments for fake Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) training certificates. A second defendant, Erik Powell, pled guilty to wire fraud on December 11, 2017, for his role in the scheme. McCormick and Powell operated a job-staffing company, National Vocation Group (NVG), located in Atlanta, Georgia. From August 2015 through October 2015, the two co-conspirators used online recruitment websites to advertise open and available jobs in the housekeeping and maintenance industries. These advertisements falsely represented that NVG had existing contracts with commercial cleaning companies throughout the Atlanta area. NVG represented that it could place its clients in jobs that paid up to $17 per hour.

 Outside of McCormick and Powell’s fraudulent staffing business When NVG’s job applicant clients were interviewed by Powell, McCormick, and other employees of NVG, the applicants were told that to be hired for the advertised jobs they would have to pay $349 for certain OSHA training. The applicants were falsely told that federal law required housecleaning and maintenance workers to take the OSHA General Industries Course before starting work in the advertised jobs. 

Hundreds of applicants paid the defendants the $349 fee based on NVG’s false representations, took the OSHA course, and received fake certificates. None of those applicants received the high-paying jobs they were promised. United States v. Ahmad McCormick (N.D. Georgia)