[StBernard] FEMA fraud paid for football, vacations, erotica

[Westley Annis]

FEMA fraud paid for football, vacations, erotica 
Up to $1.4 billion doled out in bogus assistance to Katrina, Rita victims
The Associated Press


Updated: 6:42 p.m. CT June 14, 2006
WASHINGTON - The government doled out as much as $1.4 billion in bogus
assistance to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, getting hoodwinked to
pay for football season tickets, a tropical vacation and even a divorce
lawyer, congressional investigators have found.

Prison inmates, a supposed victim who used a New Orleans cemetery for a home
address, and a person who spent 70 days at a Hawaiian hotel all were able to
wrongly get taxpayer help, according to evidence that gives a new black eye
to the nation's disaster relief agency.

Federal investigators even informed Congress that one man apparently used
FEMA assistance money for a sex change operation.

Agents from the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of
Congress, went undercover to expose the ease of receiving disaster expense
checks from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The GAO concluded that as much as 16 percent of the billions of dollars in
FEMA help to individuals after the two hurricanes was unwarranted.

'Assault on the American taxpayer'
The findings are detailed in testimony, obtained by The Associated Press,
that is to be delivered at a hearing Wednesday by the House Homeland
Security subcommittee on investigations.

To dramatize the problem, GAO provided lawmakers with a copy of a $2,358
U.S. Treasury check for rental assistance that an undercover agent got using
a bogus address. The money was paid even after FEMA learned from its
inspector that the undercover applicant did not live at the address.

"This is an assault on the American taxpayer," said Rep. Michael McCaul,
R-Texas, chairman of the subcommittee that will conduct the hearing.
"Prosecutors from the federal level down should be looking at prosecuting
these crimes and putting the criminals who committed them in jail for a long
time."

FEMA spokesman Aaron Walker said Tuesday that the agency, already criticized
for a poor response to Katrina, makes its highest priority during a disaster
"to get help quickly to those in desperate need of our assistance."

"Even as we put victims first, we take very seriously our responsibility to
be outstanding stewards of taxpayer dollars, and we are careful to make sure
that funds are distributed appropriately," he said.


FEMA said it has identified more than 1,500 cases of potential fraud after
Katrina and Rita and has referred those cases to the Homeland Security
inspector general. The agency said it has identified $16.8 million in
improperly awarded disaster relief money and has started efforts to collect
the money.

The GAO said it was 95 percent confident that improper and potentially
fraudulent payments were much higher - between $600 million and $1.4
billion.

Hotel lodgers paid twice
The investigative agency said it found people lodged in hotels often were
paid twice, since FEMA gave them individual rental assistance and paid
hotels directly. FEMA paid California hotels $8,000 to house one individual
- the same person who received three rental assistance payments for both
disasters.


In another instance, FEMA paid an individual $2,358 in rental assistance,
while at the same time paying about $8,000 for the same person to stay 70
nights at more than $100 per night in a Hawaii hotel.

FEMA also could not establish that 750 debit cards worth $1.5 million even
went to Katrina victims, the auditors said.

Among the items purchased with the cards:

An all-inclusive, one-week Caribbean vacation in the Punta Cana resort in
the Dominican Republic.
Five season tickets to New Orleans Saints professional football games.
Adult erotica products in Houston and "Girls Gone Wild" videos in Santa
Monica, Calif.
Dom Perignon champagne and other alcoholic beverages in San Antonio.
A divorce lawyer's services in Houston.
"Our forensic audit and investigative work showed that improper and
potentially fraudulent payments occurred mainly because FEMA did not
validate the identity of the registrant, the physical location of the
damaged address, and ownership and occupancy of all registrants at the time
of registration," GAO officials said.

Prisoners' Social Security numbers given
FEMA paid millions of dollars to more than 1,000 registrants who used names
and Social Security numbers belonging to state and federal prisoners for
expedited housing assistance. The inmates were in Louisiana, Texas, Alabama,
Mississippi, Georgia and Florida.

FEMA made about $5.3 million in payments to registrants who provided a post
office box as their damaged residence, including one who got $2,748 for
listing an Alabama post office box as the damaged property.

To demonstrate how easy it was to hoodwink FEMA, the GAO told of an
individual who used 13 different Social Security numbers - including the
person's own - to receive $139,000 in payments on 13 separate registrations
for aid. All the payments were sent to a single address.

Likewise, another person used a damaged property address located within the
grounds of Greenwood Cemetery in New Orleans to request disaster aid. Public
records show no record of the registrant ever living in New Orleans.

Instead, records indicate that for the past five years, the registrant lived
in West Virginia - at the address provided to FEMA, the GAO said.

C 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be
published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13310790/page/2/


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----

C 2006 MSNBC.com