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When talking about the City of Lake Worth, through the years there have always been some who have said, "Where's the FBI?" And then we have always had the same politicos here saying, "Where's the corruption?" Now with the FEMA scandal that Lake Worth kept from the residents with a staggering figure of over $7 million in money that we can't prove we deserved, the thought of "where is the FBI" has reached a whole new decibel.
As most of the FEMA money involved the Utility, we now can understand why the Internal Auditor's focus was diverted from the Utility and rerouted to the code enforcement department. If you recall, auditing the Utility was the original intent of the Commission but this messy FEMA stuff was going on unbeknown to us. Of course, we still don't get any report from the Commission as to what the Internal Auditor is actually doing. Everyone is silent on this, even the public.
In a case involving FEMA fraud:
Three South Florida Defendants Sentenced for Kickback Scheme in Hurricane Wilma FEMA Fraud
On June 4, 2012, in Miami, Fla., Jeffrey Wayne Aunspaugh, a Port St.
Lucie electrical contractor, his wife, Angela Aunspaugh, and Christopher
Hale, his brother-in-law, were sentenced for their roles a kickback
scheme involving Hurricane Wilma disaster relief FEMA payments. Jeffrey
and Angela Aunspaugh were each sentenced to 63 months in prison and two
years supervised release. Hale was sentenced to 30 months in prison and
two years supervised release. In March 2012, the Aunspaughs were
convicted of conspiracies to commit honest services mail fraud, money
laundering and structuring financial transactions to evade currency
reporting requirements. Hale pleaded guilty to receiving kickbacks.
According to evidence presented at trial, Jeffrey and Angela Aunspaugh,
owners of Ener-Phase Electric, Inc., obtained more than $1 million from
subcontracts with Glades Utilities Services, Inc. for storm-related
repairs following Hurricane Wilma in 2005. The Aunspaughs paid more than
$200,000 in cash kickbacks to their brother-in-law, Christopher Hale,
who was the general manager of Glades Utilities Services, Inc., to
obtain the contracts.
4 comments:
As long as we have the yes voters and the no voters at odds real progress will not take place. We fight each other while the city declines and nears financial ruin. Lynn, you recently said "give a little to get alot" The attitude of camp against camp must be discouraging to the common Joe. I guess it must be fun to write a post and then sit back and watch the attacks of neighbor against neighbor. I have not seen one good thing come out of these posts and comments. An example is, now we have a 8million dollar crisis facing us and each camp is saying, not my commissioner. Sigh.
To think that I write something for the "fun of it and to sit back and watch the attacks" is a sick evaluation of what I do. Nothing will come out of comments until elected officials do their jobs.
The FEMA fiasco has nothing to do with any commission or politics. It is the lack of transparency that I object to if this commission has known about it and has not advised us. I have not read where anyone is playing the blame game. Has someone?
I find it Fascinating as well as DISTURBING that the City will take YOUR Homesteaded Property (or PUNISH You) for Not Cutting Your Grass but I would bet $20 bucks NO ONE WILL HAVE ANY PUNISHMENT or responsibility for 7.7 Million Poof - Gone - here...
Time for a FORENSIC AUDIT of our Utility - Paid for by the People.
10 yrs ago a friend was on a plane and met such an auditor. The Solution was Simple - People, get your own state certified auditor. They ANSWER to We the People who pay them directly and they will get the answers we MUST HAVE NOW!
I don't know about any fraud, what i do know is that there was a huge lapse in record keeping. the city contacted contractors that worked during the hurricanes and asked them to turn over their records for the FEMA audits. it's bad, it could have been worse!
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