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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The owner of a bomb detection dog business used at the State Department, the Federal Reserve and other government buildings was indicted on Friday for fraud and false claims about his dogs, which failed tests to sniff out explosives.
The indictment of Russell Lee Ebersole, owner of "Detector Dogs Against Drugs and Explosives," alleged his dogs failed explosives detection tests given on five different occasions, prosecutors said.

Once, the dogs and their handlers failed to detect 50 pounds of TNT, 50 pounds of dynamite and 15 pounds of the powerful explosive C-4, which were hidden in three different vehicles that entered the Federal Reserve parking facility, according to the indictment.

Prosecutors in the U.S. attorney's office in Alexandria, Virginia, which brought the case, said Ebersole was charged with 26 counts of fraud and two counts of making false claims. Ebersole, 43, faces up to five years in prison on each count.

Ebersole allegedly made a series of false statements about the company's training procedures and the qualifications of the dogs and their handlers in proposals to get the business, prosecutors said.

In an effort to keep the business, Ebersole submitted false certifications of performance proficiency for the dogs and their handlers, which patrolled the outside of the buildings as part of security efforts to protect thousands of employees.

Federal agencies paid his company, based in Stephenson, Virginia, more than $700,000, according to the indictment.

Shortly after the hijacked plane attacks on Sept. 11, 2001 and continuing into May 2002, Ebersole marketed his services to a number of government agencies, prosecutors said.

Besides the State Department and Federal Reserve here, the agencies included the IRS Service Center in Fresno, California, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency's disaster field office in New York City, the prosecutors said.