A Santa Monica parking lot mogul was sentenced to nearly six years in federal prison Monday for swindling the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs out of $13 million over the course of nearly 15 years, prosecutors said.
David Richard Scott, 58, was given 70 months in prison and also ordered to repay $12.6 million in restitution to the VA, after having already repaid some funds, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California said in a news release.
Scott will also have to forfeit millions of dollars worth of real estate and luxury goods he amassed while bilking the VA, officials said. Those assets include three condominiums in Santa Monica altogether worth an estimated value $7 million; numerous collectible cars, among them several classic Corvettes and three Ferraris; a Cigarette “Top Gun” racing boat; more than $1 million stored in financial accounts; and just over $213,000 in cash seized from his home.
Scott previously pleaded guilty to conspiracy and wire fraud on May 17. He has remained in custody since his arrest last November, officials said.
Scott’s company, Westside Services, had an 18-year contract with the VA that required him to pay the agency 60 percent of the gross revenues for lots he operated on the campuses of its Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System.
But his “goal was to pay the VA as little as possible,” he admitted in a plea agreement filed in court.
To achieve that, he falsified his financial bookkeeping, and paid VA contracting officer Ralph Tillman nearly $300,000 in hush money, prosecutors said.
“This defendant engaged in reprehensible and disgraceful conduct that had a direct impact on our nation’s veterans,” U.S. Attorney Nicola Hanna said in a statement. “This elaborate scheme stole money from the federal agency charged with providing important services and medical care to the men and women who bravely served this nation.”
The contract included operations at lots used for parking for UCLA baseball games, the Wadsworth and Brentwood theaters and the PGA golf tournament at the Riviera Country Club in Pacific Palisades.
Scott allegedly bribed Tillman on a regular basis for 11 years, beginning in 2003, until Tillman abruptly retired after he was approached by federal agents. But even after he was retired, Scott kept making payments to Tillman using cash he collected at the parking lots, officials said.
Tillman eventually cooperated with investigators and and pleaded guilty to making false statements to investigators and subscribing to a false tax return in February. He is scheduled to be sentenced next week, on Aug. 27.
