US Army Battalion Commander Charged in $475,000 Fraud Scheme

The head of an Army unit stationed at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson is charged with filing nearly half a million dollars in fraudulent insurance claims spanning more than three years.

Lt. Col. Christopher DeMure, 40, faces charges of mail and wire fraud as well as money laundering in the case, according to U.S. Attorney for Alaska, Bryan Schroder’s office. DeMure – commander of the 3rd Battalion, 509th Infantry Regiment within the 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division – allegedly made over $475,000 in false claims and received nearly $400,000 from September 2014 to February of this year.

U.S. Army Alaska spokesman John Pennell confirmed DeMure’s status as commander of the battalion, which recently returned from a tour of duty in Afghanistan, but he referred all other questions about the case to Schroder’s office.

According to charging documents, DeMure’s scheme involved claims made to military insurer USAA Federal Savings Bank as well as American Express on at least seven separate occasions. In one incident, he allegedly claimed more than $215,000 in false losses from a U-Haul van he said was burglarized in July 2016 when he moved to JBER from Fort Benning, Ga.  [KTVA News 11]

You can read much more at the link, but once again assuming all of this is true, LTC DeMure must have thought USAA was stupid and would not catch on to his fraud claims.  You would think he would at least try to make fraudulent claims with different insurance companies instead of making them all with USAA which makes it easier to detect.