Posted on 08/06/2002 6:45:10 AM PDT by Retired Chemist
NEW YORK - Fifteen million dollars was looted from the city's Municipal Credit Union by its own members - including city employees, health care professionals and education workers - when a computer failure caused by the collapse of the World Trade Center allowed virtually unlimited access to money in automated teller machines, prosecutors said Monday. Sixty-six people who withdrew $7,500 or more beyond what was in their accounts have been arrested and face felony charges of grand larceny, and 35 are being sought for arrest, said Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney.
In all, he said, about 4,000 people are being investigated.
A frenzy of wrongful withdrawals began almost immediately after the terrorist attacks, when the credit union, which has headquarters on Cortlandt Street near ground zero, lost its computer link to the New York Cash Exchange, a network of automated teller machines.
The network, which is the largest in the Northeast and processes ATM transactions, had no way to access the credit union accounts to ensure there were sufficient funds to cover withdrawals.
Rather than shut down its entire ATM operation and believing it was helping its 300,000 members during a traumatic time, the union continued to allow withdrawals without knowing whether those making the withdrawals had the money in their accounts to cover them.
``We did this at a time of crisis in the city because many of our members are firemen, policemen, and we felt at the time it was a necessary step for us to take to help settle down the city,'' said Thomas Siciliano, the general counsel of the Municipal Credit Union.
``We did not realize on the first day that there would be this kind of loss.''
No good deed goes unpunished. Very disturbing story.
Remember -- this is New York City we're talking about. Many of the perps in this case probably don't even know how to spell "ATM."
"Fifteen million dollars was looted from the city's Municipal Credit Union by its own members - including city employees, health care professionals and education workers - when a computer failure caused by the collapse of the World Trade Center allowed virtually unlimited access to money in automated teller machines ... Sixty-six people who withdrew $7,500 or more beyond what was in their accounts have been arrested ... and 35 are being sought for arrest ... "
From Tom Ridge, President's Bush's top man at the HomeLand Security Operation in Washington, DC, in an article at The Washington Times, August 1, 2002:
Department of Hollow Security? (scroll down to paragraph no. 7)" ... The vast majority of federal employees are capable, dedicated public servants. ... "
Sure. The article above, may as well have read:
from the Federal Credit Union by its own members - including government employees, federal health care professionals and federal public education workers, members of the N.E.A. -
It worked for years for Congressmen.
Yes, but fortunately, time wounds all heels...
Sixty-six people who withdrew $7,500 or more beyond what was in their accounts have been arrested and face felony charges of grand larceny, and 35 are being sought for arrest, said Robert M. Morgenthau, the Manhattan district attorney.
For many federal workers, job just a paycheckby Paul C. Light
Americans who read the headlines coming out of Washington this past year must be wondering whether the federal government can pound sand into a hole, let alone restore homeland security or win the war on terrorism.
- The FBI fails to investigate warnings of terrorist flight training.
- Immigration officials send visa notices to long-dead hijackers.
- The IRS help line gives the wrong answer to one out of four tax-law questions.
- The Social Security Administration can't answer almost a third of its phone calls.
- The US government gave $20 billion last year to the wrong people and has no plan to get it all back.
... In a Brookings Institution Center for Public Service poll that we are releasing Thursday [June 27th], two-thirds of the federal employees interviewed this spring said they took their job for its security, pay and benefits &emdash; not the chance to help people, make a difference or accomplish something worthwhile. Two out of five said they come into work solely for the paycheck, while fewer than one in 20 said they show up to help the public. (Postal, military and employees of quasi-government agencies weren't polled.)
... how many federal employees see their work. More than half say their organizations do not do a good job of disciplining poor performers, and almost as many say that there are too many layers of management in their agencies.
The effect of layering is clear. As FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley told a Senate committee, "Like the (plant in the) Little Shop of Horrors movie, the bureaucracy just keeps saying, 'Feed me, feed me.' " The problem in preventing terrorist attacks is not a lack of information, for example. Rather, it is getting past the childhood game of telephone that the bureaucracy plays as intelligence rises through layer upon layer of interpreters ...
Paul C. Light is vice president and director of governmental studies at the Brookings Institution.
Workers Accused of Credit Union Theft
Tue Aug 6, 2:11 AM ET
By DEVLIN BARRETT, Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) - In one of the largest fraud cases resulting from the terrorist attacks, thousands of people are accused of using ATMs to steal $15 million from a municipal employees' credit union whose computer security system was damaged on Sept. 11.
Sixty-six people have been arrested and 35 more were being sought in the scheme, authorities said Monday.
District Attorney Robert Morgenthau said the suspects found a way to repeatedly withdraw up to $500 a day from ATMs — even if their accounts at the Municipal Credit Union couldn't cover it.
The problem stems from Sept. 11, when the attack on the World Trade Center damaged a nearby building housing the credit union's computer system.
Credit union officials soon realized they could not properly monitor the computer network that handles automated teller transactions. But they decided to allow withdrawals without the normal banking safeguards so they would not offend members affected by the tragedy.
"This is a prime example of no good deed goes unpunished," Morgenthau said.
"People took advantage." He said as many as 4,000 people manipulated the system to overdraw their bank accounts by at least $1,000. Of that group, more than 540 credit union members exceeded their balances by more than $5,000.
According to authorities, a 54-year-old nurse made 54 cash withdrawals from Sept. 18 to the end of October, leaving her with a negative balance of $18,111.
A Housing Authority employee allegedly made dozens of withdrawals, using his credit union card to make purchases at a barbecue restaurant, a liquor store and a motel. A school safety officer allegedly made 80 withdrawals in a five-week span, leaving her account more than $11,000 in debt.
The computer problem was fixed in November, and investigators began tracing the illicit withdrawals. Authorities said a handful of people, when confronted about the transactions, agreed to take out loans to pay the money back.
Those who "took the least amount" will be able to pay back the credit union, Morgenthau said.
Since Sept. 11, local and federal prosecutors have already charged more than 90 people on a variety of fraud counts, many involving false claims for assistance. No case has involved as many people as the one announced Monday.
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Wonder how many of these thieves were members of the Teachers Unions?
My favorite: A Housing Authority employee allegedly made dozens of withdrawals, using his credit union card to make purchases at a barbecue restaurant, a liquor store and a motel.
DA Morgenthau will be the least of this guy's problems when his wife finds out!
This is true. My neighbor, who works for the post office, has loads of emdash in his garage.
Eventually I reached Broadway and made my way to 18th Street or 20th, trying telephones along the way. The streets were lined with people. Some were still shopping, despite the morning’s events.
I was stunned upon reading that. That some people were still going on about their morning activities (and shopping, of all things), while the environment all around them was filled with violent death, destruction, and utter chaos.
Now it appears that other New Yorkers (city employees, health care professionals and education workers) were looting their own credit union as their city was in the midst of an unprecedented terrorist attack, and thousands of innocents were being incinerated, or leaping to their deaths to avoid the heat and flames.
Healthcare professionals and education workers. People in whose hands we place our sick, and our children. People for whom the concept of compassion once held special significance. The four thousand of them who manipulated the system, just a short distance from where the Twin Towers were burning, give new meaning to the phrase the dregs of society.
I’d like to airlift them all to a deserted island, where they would spend the rest of their days making do with whatever they can subsist on there. Maybe a small portion of them might learn to comprehend the real worth of paper money (and that which it can buy) vs. character and the I am my brother’s keeper concept.
Or maybe not. Redemption requires conscience.
I think it goes something like: He who loots first, loots most.
And other Harvard ethicisms.
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