Federal Emergency Aid Spent on Fraud

Shocker. You start handing out tons of cash to a region that has the highest crime rates in the country, don’t be surprised when the cash gets spent on stupid stuff.

Apparantly almost 12.4 BILLION dollars in Katrina aid were spent fraudulently.

From KATC.com here:

WASHINGTON — Houston divorce lawyer Mark Lipkin says he can’t recall anyone paying for his services with a FEMA debit card, but congressional investigators say one of his clients did just that.

The $1,000 payment was just one example cited in an audit that concluded that up to $1.4 billion _ perhaps as much as 16 percent of the billions of dollars in assistance expended after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita _ was spent for bogus reasons.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency also was hoodwinked to pay for season football tickets, a tropical vacation and a sex change operation, the audit 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 get taxpayer help, according to evidence that gives a new black eye to the nation’s disaster relief agency.

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.

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.

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.

I hope they track down these criminals and get the cash back and throw them in jail.