GAO: Bogus Hurricane Aid May Top $1.4B
By LARRY MARGASAK, The Associated Press
Jun 13, 2006 11:28 PM (17 mins ago)
WASHINGTON - The government doled out as much as $1.4 billion in bogus assistance to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, getting hoodwinked to pay for season football tickets, a tropical vacation and even a divorce lawyer, congressional investigators have 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 wrongly get taxpayer help, according to evidence that gives a new black eye to the nation's disaster relief agency.
Federal investigators even informed Congress that one man apparently used FEMA assistance money for a sex change operation.
Agents from the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, went undercover to expose the ease of receiving disaster expense checks from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
http://www.examiner.com/a-135076~GAO__Bogus_Hurricane_Aid_May_Top__1_4B.html