The number is astounding -- $1.4 billion in fraud related to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

The government doled out as much as $1.4 billion in bogus assistance to victims of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and was 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 were able to wrongly get taxpayer help, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Agents from the investigative arm of Congress went undercover to expose the ease of receiving disaster expense checks from the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

The GAO concluded that as much as 16 percent of the billions of dollars in FEMA aid to individuals after the two hurricanes was unwarranted.

The findings are detailed in testimony that is scheduled to be delivered at a hearing today by the House Homeland Security subcommittee on investigations.

To dramatize the problem, the GAO provided lawmakers with a copy of a $2,358 U.S. Treasury check for rental assistance that an undercover agent got using a bogus address. The money was paid even after FEMA learned from its inspector that the undercover applicant did not live at the address.

"This is an assault on the American taxpayer," said Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), chairman of the subcommittee that will conduct the hearing. "Prosecutors from the federal level down should be looking at prosecuting these crimes and putting the criminals who committed them in jail for a long time."

It also pisses me off. Many folks impacted by the hurricanes who were insured and/or who applied for FEMA money following the hurricanes were denied compensation for damages that were considered to be not serious enough to meet the requirements for assistance, even if those expenses were in the $2000-3000 range. In the mean time, government debit cards for those amounts were being issued so that folks could go to strip clubs or buy designer clothes. It seems to me that such disaster programs need to be fixed.

Posted by: Greg at 10:57 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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