Employees Stole Millions Meant for 9/11 Work, Officials Say

December 10, 2005

The money was rushed to New York City after the Sept. 11 attacks, emergency federal aid to help the chief medical examiner identify the remains gathered from ground zero. But two city employees siphoned off at least $10 million for their personal use, according to charges announced yesterday by federal and city authorities.

The employees, Natarajan R. Venkataram and Rosa Abreu, who both worked at the medical examiner's office, were arrested late Wednesday.

In a criminal complaint, they were accused of running a scheme of shadow companies and fake contract bids to steal funds sent by the Federal Emergency Management Agency soon after the attacks, when the medical examiner was overwhelmed by the huge and delicate task of identifying nearly 3,000 victims.

Mr. Venkataram worked from March 1992 until last September as the director of the Management Information Systems department in the medical examiner's office, the complaint says. He was in charge of buying computer equipment and software for the office.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/10/nyregion/10fraud.html


I hope they throw the book at them.

But when its a white collar crime they give it some kind of a fancy name, suggesting an underlying fascination with the "brilliant" crime. Names like "money laundering", or "embezzlement" or "misappropriation". So I imagine this story will be on page B6 of the newspaper for one day and we'll never hear anything about it ever again.

But somebody stealing a plasma TV after Katrina, why that is worthy of white hot rage :grr:

is looking to hire them for FEMA or some other corrupt BushCo agency. Iraq reconstruction maybe?

So the toothless white rustics can use their racial bias and vote early and often for their "repuke protectors".

The rustics believe the black man will rape their white daughter

Throw them in the crater.