Documents obtained by the Washington Examiner under a Freedom of Information Act request reveal that a longtime employee at the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (EEOC) stole $60,000 in taxpayer funds and used the money to splurge on Armani, Louis Vuitton, and a Disneyland vacation.
Ironically, the employee’s criminal behavior was aided by a new EEOC gift card payment policy that was put in place due to a previous employee charging large amounts of unauthorized purchases to a commission credit card:
The Philadelphia EEOC office began buying American Express gift cards and paying contractors with them, apparently so the contractors couldn’t run up limitless bills. That action was taken following a 2012 incident in which a contractor used a commission credit card to run up a huge bill of unauthorized charges.
The employee, whose name was redacted but who had worked at the commission for 22 years, stole cards worth $3,000 apiece over a period of two years, totaling $60,000, and no one at the commission noticed.
It was only when an outside accounting firm was hired to conduct a routine audit that it was discovered that the commission was paying contractors in gift cards, and that there was little or no documentation for what was being bought.
American Express records revealed the employee’s taste for designer brands and resort vacations.
However, despite her confessed guilt, the employee has yet to be brought to justice by the federal government:
The inspector general secured a taped confession from the employee. But even after that, the federal government did not appear particularly concerned.
The inspector general confronted her on Nov. 14, 2013, more than three months after the accounting firm exposed the gift card issue. She was placed on paid leave and was still on it at the time the inspector general’s report was published last week.
The commission brought its evidence to the Department of Justice, but the federal government declined to prosecute her for stealing from it. (She was later charged by Philadelphia city prosecutors.)
We wish this was an April Fool’s joke. Unfortunately, it’s not.