Posted on 09/16/2005 5:43:03 PM PDT by KeyLargo
OPINION
Fraud, waste are costs of compassion Peter A. Brown COMMENTARY
September 16, 2005
Katrina's cleanup will be both outrageously expensive and so loosely managed that some people and companies will make out like bandits.
That is the price we pay for being a compassionate society. It is the unfortunate byproduct of acting humanely.
Let's be clear.
Maximum efficiency, which includes extensive financial safeguards, is incompatible with rebuilding the Gulf Coast while underwriting the daily existence of Katrina's victims.
After all, we are talking about both the biggest natural disaster -- and the largest government-run rebuilding -- in U.S. history.
And a government-led effort responds differently to public and political pressure than one run by the private sector, where the bottom line matters more.
The fact is that the first priority of those awarding contracts and writing checks is not limiting the government's exposure.
It is making sure those public officials and their superiors are not portrayed in the media as being mean to people already down on their luck.
Some companies will take advantage of the situation to make fat profits. And there will be countless individuals, some victims and some just playing the role, who see taking the government for as much as they can get as their birthright.
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
That's the price we pay for living in a compassionate society."
Mr. Brown, you are an idiot!
Pomoze Bog.
"while underwriting the daily existence of Katrina's victims."
Ummmmm...haven't the taxpayers been doing that for years for most of those refugees, anyway? So what's changed?
Tsar Lazar
Bull crap! Put an unimpeachable person in charge.
Rudy?
"The taxpayers will get taken.
That's the price we pay for living in a compassionate society."
-----
The confiscatory levels of taxation we experience now, have injected wisdom into even the most ignorant and complacent of our society -- let's hope the awareness and the outrage spread.
Us taxpayers have been for years. Nothing different.
Woman charged in Katrina relief fraud
September 16, 2005
http://www.tampabays10.com/news/news.aspx?storyid=18964
Bradenton, Florida -- A woman who claimed to be an evacuee from New Orleans was arrested today on charges she fraudulently got a Red Cross VISA credit card worth $1,565 and withdrew all but $2, Manatee County Sheriff's Office reported.
Authorities said she may also have done the same thing at Red Cross centers in Sarasota and Tampa.
Rhonda Faye Clifton, 27, was arrested after a manager of a Days Inn became suspicious from her comments and actions, and notified authorities.
"The suspect claimed to be fron New Orleans and received from the Bradenton Chapter of the Red Cross a VISA credit card with a limit of $1,565.00 on it," the office reported. The suspect stated "she has never been to, or lived in New Orleans."
Deputies say she was found in possession of the VISA card as well as a receipt showing a cash advance from the card, leaving a balance of only $2.00. She also had $552.00 in cash on her, they said.
She was arrested on fraud charges and transported to the Manatee County jail.
Manatee County Sheriff’s Office
Second Woman Held for Fraud
Video
Jerry Carnes Reports
Sandra Wade
Beretta Jo Hogg
Web Editor: Tracey Christensen
Last Modified: 9/16/2005 7:58:20 PM
A second woman from the Metro Atlanta area has been arrested and charged with fraud after taking money and goods while posing as a Hurricane Katrina evacuee.
Sandra Wade, of Atlanta, has been charged and jailed in Whitfield County after a resident of Dalton who met her at a Red Cross shelter took her around to gather donations from area stores. When the Good Samaritan took Wade to her own church, church members gathered $250 to give to Wade.
Before handing over the money, the church received a call from the American Red Cross to notify them that Wade was scamming them. Police said Wade had given a fake social security number to the Red Cross workers at the shelter in Dalton, where she had accepted a $320 gift card.
This past weekend, a Lithonia woman was charged with posing as an evacuee in order to gain money from the American Red Cross.
Cobb County police arrested 36-year-old Beretta Jo Hogg on Saturday and charged her with theft by deception. According to police, Hogg showed up at a relief shelter in Marietta with her 8-year-old son. She claimed to have lost everything in the hurricane. Hogg waited in line, filled out the paperwork, and was given $1,300 in aid.
A woman who felt sorry for Hogg took her and her son into her own home. However, the son told the woman he attended school in Stone Mountain. The woman called authorities and Hogg was arrested and taken to jail.
http://www.11alive.com/rss/article.aspx?storyid=69345
September 16, 2005
http://www.kare11.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=107363#
Katrina 'refugee' turns out to be fugitive
A Burnsville woman who offered her home to Hurricane Katrina survivors has learned that the woman she tried to help was actually a fugitive wanted for fraud.
But Derya Goral says she had grown suspicious of her houseguest, Rachel Bruneau, and told the woman to leave before authorities arrived to arrest the woman.
Goral met the Bruneau online last week after posting her home as a temporary housing site for hurricane survivors.
Bruneau from Tampa, Florida, claimed to be a hurricane survivor.
Goral says she grew suspicious when Bruneau told different versions of stories about her life and talked about "every detail except about the hurricane."
Goral spent more than $300 on the woman and gave her donated clothing and hygiene products. She says she wouldn't open her house again.
Unbelievable. A call to our citizens to slack off and to government to betray the public trust.
No wonder we are sinking faster every day.
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