A former state employee from the Department of Job and Family Services was indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of wire fraud, conspiracy and destruction of records.
Jatinder Singh, 42, of Dublin, and Anju Vallabhaneni, 49, the CEO of United Software Group, headquartered in Dublin, are accused of trying to sell a multimillion-dollar software program to the state of West Virginia as their own.
The two pitched the program as an “off the shelf” automation solution to meet West Virginia’s needs, when in fact the program was developed by the state of Ohio, and the U.S. Department of Labor paid more than $3 million to fund it, authorities said.
Ultimately, West Virginia did not accept the nearly $1 million bid because of budgetary reasons.
The two men were in U.S. District Court in Columbus Friday for an initial court hearing and are free on bond.
The software company was a registered vendor with Ohio, according to a news release from the Department of Justice. As a vendor, the company provided an information technology contractor to work on the automation project with Singh.
Both men claimed to be employees of the software company, but it was not disclosed that Singh was a state employee. Singh was employed as a solution manager. His work included developing and implementing software for the automation of the appeals process for the Ohio Unemployment Compensation Review Commission.
The Justice Department claimed the purpose of the scheme was to obtain computer codes and other information from Ohio’s automation solution for the unemployment compensation appeals process.
Ohio Deputy Inspector General Carl Enslen said the indictments were the result of a four-year investigation.
“It took an inordinate amount of time for us to get to this point,” he said. “It involved an immense amount of wait and countermeasure and work with FBI in the last stretches of it. So much of this was an effort to obtain documents and search warrants.”
The investigation was conducted by the Ohio inspector general, the FBI, the U.S. Department of Labor and the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Ohio.
Singh and Vallabhaneni are accused of committing seven counts of wire fraud and one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, while Singh is accused of one count of destruction, alteration or falsification of records.
Each crime is punishable by up to 20 years in prison.
Marilyn Miller can be reached at 330-996-3098 or mmiller@thebeaconjournal.com.