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Wednesday, June 10, 2009

$500,000 stolen from low-income heating program
Lynne Abraham charged 18 city employees
 

Yesterday, District Attorney Lynne Abraham released a seething investigation charging 18 people - 16 of them LIHEAP employees - with stealing more than $500,000 from the agency.

It was money that was designated to help poor and low-income families keep warm in the winter. Instead, the employees kept themselves warm by defrauding the system to procure new heaters and stealing money to pay for everything from clothing to a wedding in Costa Rica, Abraham said.

"Their scheme was so clever and was so easy to perpetrate because nobody really cared, and that's what gets all of us," she said.

According to investigators, the scheme worked like this: While LIHEAP grants are typically sent directly to heating vendors like Peco or PGW, there are a few exceptions.

If tenants can prove that they have wood or kerosene heat or that their heat is included in their rent, a grant can be sent directly to them.

Energy-assistance workers at the agency figured out that they could generate fake applications for such grants, Abraham said.

They then approached clerical workers, who entered the data into the system, and offered them kickbacks for entering in fake applications, court documents said.

The applications were under false names and workers' friends' and relatives' names - even, in one case, a barber, according to the grand jury report.

Those individuals would then cash the checks and remand the money to the workers, often receiving kickbacks, the D.A. said.
Posted by Ben Waxman @ 12:02 PM  Permalink | 3 comments
Comments   
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 1:32 PM, 06/10/2009
    We need to end the part of the program that allows direct reimbursement. People in the city with kerosene heaters are a hazard, anyway, what are people thinking? Do you know the percent of fires in Philly that are a result of kerosene heaters? That's what Council should be banning. The press has got to do a better job of investigating programs like this or the state will have cause to simply end them.
    — CleanupPhilly
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 1:51 PM, 06/10/2009
    The PA Dept. of Welfare needs a comprehensive, third-party, outside top accounting firm audit. Not a pay of a legislator, but an honest forensic revue by a nonpolitical top 10 accounting firm. This is going to protect funding for programs that aim to serve the most vulnerable. As long as the press only knee-jerk claims that the answer is more and more and more money for programs like LIHEAP without themselves vetting that these are good programs spending the money well, then you forfeit their duty as the fourth estate. It's hard for me, personally, the next time I read that you want to see more money for a program, but no details are offered on the health of the finances, for me to accept that on faith. It's not that I'm a mean member of your dreaded GOP, it's that it's hard for me to accept on faith that you guys have done your homework. I suspect I'm not the only one. There is low-hanging journalistic fruit here, and all you guys do is say how great every single program is, even when people who work with agencies tell you otherwise.
    — CleanupPhilly
  • 0 like this / 0 don't   •   Posted 1:55 PM, 06/10/2009
    You guys cannot keep having the depth of coverage on the programs you advocate for -- shallow. You coverage is shallow, and the tone of your advocacy never changes even as administrations change and complaints emerge. That's the gripe people have with blind liberalism -- it utterly ignores the depravity of human nature even of those involved in (maybe even especially) these programs. There are problems with how the money is spent. More money is not coming. Maybe less money is coming. So we have to make sure, all of us, that the money is well spent, and every journalist is going to have to call for an annual report and get used to looking at what makes a good spreadsheet.
    — CleanupPhilly


3 comments
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