Claim for Per Diem

An Air Force civilian employee appealed a Claims Division denial of his claim for per diem. The employee had received an allowance for per diem expenses for two periods during which he had been on temporary duty. At a later date, a suspicion arose that his claim for lodging was false in part. The Air Force and the FBI concluded that he had defrauded the Government. A Federal grand jury indicted him for filing a fraudulent claim for lodging and making a false statement under oath about these expenses. A jury trial found him not guilty. In the meantime, the Air Force initiated a recoupment action for the entire per diem. Since that time, $25 per paycheck has been deducted from the employee's paycheck. The Claims Division denied an appeal of that action on the grounds of doubtful validity. Usually an employee's acquittal is res judicata and estops the Government from contending in any civil or administrative proceeding that he submitted a false claim for lodging. The Government is not estopped from finding that certain lodging items on the voucher were fraudulent. Claims for expenses on days for which no fraud was proved may be paid. The record submitted by the Air Force contained three different estimates of the amount of fraud and merely stated conclusions as to the various items allowed or disallowed. There was no indication in the record of any fraud in connection with one of the employee's temporary duty trips. The per diem claim was remanded to the Air Force for a recalculation of the amount of the suspected fraud and a determination of the number of days for which fraudulent information was submitted. The employee should be allowed per diem for the days for which no fraud was involved.