Posted on 09/01/2010 4:52:05 AM PDT by csvset
NORFOLK
The FBI has joined a growing list of law enforcers trying to figure out how a woman who didn't show up for work at a community services organization for 12 years continued to be paid and to what extent others might be involved.
City Attorney Bernard Pishko said the employee is no longer on the payroll and that others in the organization are being questioned to see whether they had any involvement in a scheme to funnel money. As of Tuesday, no one else with the Norfolk Community Services Board had been suspended or fired.
"These are people that are showing up for work," Pishko said of those being questioned. "Decisions are pending."
The employee, Jill McGlone, was paid by the Community Services Board, which relies on federal, state and local funding to provide mental health and substance abuse treatment, among other services. Employees of the organization work for the board, not the city. The agency employs about 300 workers.
McGlone was paid in the $15,000 range at the start and was receiving just more than $25,000 when she was taken off the payroll, Pishko said.
She lives on Jacquelyn Court in Norfolk in a house that property records show she and Alonzo D. McGlone purchased in 2000 for $104,900. She declined requests for interviews.
"I met with an FBI agent, a local special agent, and he's going to be investigating," said Jack Cloud, a deputy attorney in Pishko's office. "He's being directed by the U.S. Attorney's Office."
Cloud said he talked recently with representatives from the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development's Office of Inspector General and the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Development Services. The FBI has declined to comment.
An investigation by the Community Services Board and the city attorney, which represents it, will be turned over to Norfolk police, according to the city attorney.
Maureen Womack, executive director of the Community Services Board, reported the problem to her governing board and then to the city attorney, the city attorney's office said. The Norfolk City Council appoints the agency's governing board, which picks the executive director.
Womack was appointed in early 2009, replacing George Pratt, who retired. Pratt said Monday that he was not familiar with McGlone.
"There were audits every year. Expensive audits every year," Pratt said. "I cannot imagine how something like this could occur.
"Every employee has a performance evaluation every year, and their increases or any changes are based on that."
City Councilman Andy Protogyrou, a criminal defense attorney, sent an e-mail to the city clerk saying he wants the city to recommend that a criminal case be prosecuted.
"If pay was conducted online, a wire fraud count can be brought and conspiracy is much easier to prosecute in Federal Court," he wrote. "Guidelines will assure jail time in years."
In an interview, Protogyrou said the case could be more easily prosecuted in the federal system, especially if a telephone, e-mail or direct deposit was used.
"It takes two to tango on something like this - or more," he said.
Pilot writer Steven G. Vegh contributed to this report.
Wouldn’t it be even crazier (but like our wonderful bureaucracies) if the money was going into a never-accessed bank account and the woman actually was earning a living elsewhere.
Well, now there’s a non-job opening!
I wonder if I can nontelecommute to not do this job from Dallas.
Well, since she is off the payroll now, is she eligible for her 99 weeks of unemployment pay?
So, does this job now count as being saved?
Should be fairly easy to find out at least one link in the chain of this fraud ...
... who signed her performance evaluations?
SOmeone being blackmailed? Who had she had an affair with?
With your political leanings they would never give you the job. Not that you could stand to steal money like that.
“The agency employs about 300 workers.”
299 or 301? Either way, how can the organization justify this many workers?
I once lived in an area (a US island) in which the local government workers also had a side business. For instance a government truck driver would be a taxi driver(tourist industry big). The truck driver would clock in and instead of getting in the truck would drive away in his cab. The government hired, purposely hired more government workers than they needed and paid them above the average. This was, probably is a well known racket.
It’s difficult to shake the feeling that all this righteous indignation is not over the missing funds but over the embarrassment to a load of bureaucrats.
Thank you Councilman Protogyrou. A recent theft of $80,000 from the local mass transit agency was going to go without prosecution.
Thankfully, word leaked out and that has now changed.
Two ex-HRT employees indicted over missing cash (80K, HRT executives chose not to prosecute)
Why are these government agencies so rife with corruption? Anyone? Bueller?
What is sickening is that their are federally funded
operations like this all over the country, usually under names like “Community Action Organization”.
The Feds supply the money for these operations that run free bus services, free cheese distribution, and whatever scams that suck federal funds.
I was contracted by one in Tennessee to provide radio communications services.
The waste and incompetence is mind staggering.
Exactly. She must have a yearly performance evaluation. Her direct superior was in on this. And if the boss changed over the years I would suspect a much bigger scam.
Well, wanna bet there are more phantom employees.
The money was going somewhere or to something, was she keeping the money or was she just a drop off point?
The management definitely had to know and accountants probably had to know as they signed off accounts.
The immediate supervisors are in a heap of crap because they are directly in the toilet.
Ironically, the fact that she was not doing anything to spend more of other people’s money on worthless projects may make her, comparatively speaking, a plus.
We call them “Ghost Workers”....every union run jobsite has them.....
Do a search on Alonzo McGlone, just for the heck of it!
Very interesting! It appears her husband is suing Wal-Mart for wrongful termination! I guess they exected him to actually show up! ( Actually, he was hired as a greeter and starting using a cane at work and was let go, just to be clear )
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