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Ex-Army Reserve’s trial begins
The jury trial of former U.S. Army Reserve member Jordan M. Jucutan began yesterday in federal court.
Assistant U.S. attorney Russell Lorfing completed the U.S. government’s opening statements.
Attorney Pamela Brown Blackburn, counsel for Jucutan, is expected to make the defense’s opening statements today, Wednesday, at 8am.
Jucutan is facing charges of four counts of wire fraud and four counts of aggravated identity theft.
Lorfing alleged that Jucutan, a former member of the U.S. Army Reserve, engaged in a scheme to defraud and to obtain money by falsely claiming he referred soldiers to enlist in the Reserve through the Army Reserve Recruiter Assistant Program.
In his opening statements, Lorfing asked the jurors to remember the code of conduct—duty, honor, and integrity.
Lorfing said it’s not an ordinary fraud case, but about a man who defrauded a contractor for the U.S. Army Reserve Command during a time of war.
Lorfing said that in 2005, the U.S. was facing two wars—in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
He said the U.S. Army Reserve Command entered into a contract with Document & Packaging Brothers Inc. (Docupak) to administer a program called the Army Reserve Recruiting Assistance Program.
Lorfing said AR-RAP was designed to offer monetary incentives in the form of recruiting referral bonuses to Army Reserve soldiers, known as recruiter assistants, to recruit other individuals to serve in the U.S. Army Reserve.
The prosecutor said $2,000 is given to a recruiter assistant, for every soldier recruited.
Lorfing named four persons in which Jucutan received money for supposedly recruiting them.
Lorfing said the evidence will show that the four never gave Jucutan permission to use their Social Security number and that they were not recruited.
Lorfing also named four other individuals that Jucutan supposedly nominated in his scheme.
Lorfing said Jucutan made a confession when interrogated by agents from the U.S. Army Reserve Criminal Investigation Division and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
