News Release US Attorney' Office-Omaha
United States Attorney Joe Kelly announced that Seth Mock, 33, of Lincoln, Nebraska, was sentenced today in Lincoln by Senior United States District Judge Richard G. Kopf for theft of government property. Mock was sentenced to 5 years of probation with intermittent confinement along with special conditions and ordered to pay $339,588.84 in restitution. Mock’s Loving Life Learning Center was also ordered to pay $181,489 in restitution, an amount constituting a portion of the larger restitution award ordered against Seth Mock.
Seth Mock was the owner of Mock’s Loving Life Learning Center (MLLLC), a childcare center that provided services in Omaha beginning in June, 2014. Mock signed contracts with the State of Nebraska to receive reimbursement payments through the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Child Care Development Fund Program (CCDF) for childcare expenses for eligible children pursuant to the rules and regulations of the United States and the State of Nebraska. MLLLC was licensed as a childcare center by the State of Nebraska. Mock was trained by the State of Nebraska in the proper submission of CCDF claims for reimbursement.
From August, 2014 to December, 2015, MLLLC knowingly stole and converted to its own use money and property of the United States, through HHS, a department thereof, having a value in excess of $96,000, through the intentional submissions of false claims to the State of Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services. The submission reported false information which inflated the number of children and hours that children attended Mock’s Loving Life Learning Center in order to receive additional and fraudulent payments from the United States Department of Health and Human Services.
“Today, Mr. Mock has been held accountable for his actions that involved deceit and trickery when he used fraudulently obtained government funds meant for his daycare for his personal use,” said David Talcott, Acting Special Agent in Charge of the IRS Criminal Investigation division in the St. Louis Field Office. “IRS CI, along with law enforcement partners, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office will continue to identify, investigate and prosecute individuals like Mr. Mock.”
This case was investigated by the Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Inspector General, the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigations Division, and the Department of Homeland Security Investigations.