Business owner to pay restitution for defrauding Child Care Assistance Program

EAST GREENWICH, R.I. (WLNE) — Attorney General Peter Neronha said Friday that an East Greenwich business owner was ordered to pay restitution for defrauding the state’s Child Care Assistance Program.

Keun Soo Han falsely claimed that certain children were enrolled at his daycare center, and billed CCAP for non-existent enrollments.

He pled no contest to one count of Obtaining Money Under False Pretenses over $1,500, and was sentenced to a three-year deferred sentence and ordered to pay a total of $422,000 in restitution.

Neronha said that an audit of Han’s U.S. Taekwondo Center, Inc. uncovered substantial fraudulent overpayments between January 2019 and March 2020.

Over the course of the investigation the state Department of Administration’s Office of Internal Audits and state police’s Financial Crimes Unit found that over 300 children were reported to be present at the Taekwondo Center’s two locations despite not attending.

Neronha added that investigators interviewed former employees of the center, who reported direct instructions from the defendant to mark absent children as present and to continue billing CCAP for students who were no longer enrolled.