Jonathan Gruber, the architect of President Obama's signature legislation, Obamacare, has settled with the state of Vermont after being investigated for submitting at least two false invoices in 2014.
The Burlington Free Press reports that Gruber, a professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, filed two bills for $100,000 in late 2014 claiming that he had put 100 hours into research while his assistant had put 500 hours into such work. Gruber received payment for the bills but the state had withheld $40,000 until the work was complete.
The invoices were later found to be inaccurate, as his associate would have had to work 12 to 16.7 hour days to make the figures submitted by Gruber work, the Free Press wrote. Doug Hoffer, Vermont's auditor, asked the attorney general to investigate the claims in 2015.
The office of the attorney general said they believe that Gruber's billing to the state violated the Civil False Claims Act, which would have allowed the state to seek a civil penalty and three times the amount of damages that occurred to the state. The cost of the investigation and prosecution could also be included.
However, the state settled with Gruber after he agreed to drop the remaining $40,000 bill and $50,000 that would be paid for his assistant's work. The state dropped the avenue of prosecution under the state's false claims act.
The settlement, which was just recently made public, was signed on May 10.
Gruber previously came under fire after video surfaced of him saying that the "lack of transparency" and the "stupidity of the American voter" were "critical" in passing Obama's health care law.