Former Veteran Affairs Official Gets 5 Years

A former Veterans Affairs official will spend five years in prison for a scheme to defraud the agency. Justice Department officials said William Brandt was the associate director of a regional mail-order VA pharmacy in Illinois for 11 years. During that time, he and his wife set up a staffing company to provide temporary pharmacists to his own pharmacy. They did this while hiding their ownership of the company from the government. Brandt and his wife were also ordered to pay $400,000 in restitution. The former director of the pharmacy pleaded guilty to taking bribes in the same case four years ago.