{"id":1000,"date":"2007-12-19T09:32:52","date_gmt":"2007-12-19T13:32:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/2007\/12\/19\/tax-scandal-reaches-back-to-the-90s\/"},"modified":"2007-12-19T09:36:34","modified_gmt":"2007-12-19T13:36:34","slug":"tax-scandal-reaches-back-to-the-90s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=1000","title":{"rendered":"Tax scandal reaches back to the ’90s"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Washington Examiner<\/a> reports this morning that the Harriet “Mother” Walters scandal that has drained at least $20 million from DC and federal coffers has it’s roots in the 1990s;<\/p>\n

Prosecutors on Tuesday charged real estate agent Alethia O. Grooms, of Clinton, Md., as an accessory to the scheme and said in charging documents that they have evidence that the scam reached back to 1990. Before Tuesday, authorities had officially dated the scandal to 2001.<\/p>\n

The Examiner reported last month that federal investigators believed the origins of the scam would be traced well back into the 1990s. At that time, investigators were poring through written records in city warehouses to determine when, and how, tax office employees began siphoning tens of millions of dollars through a series of dummy companies and phony property tax refunds.<\/p>\n

To date, only two ex-tax office employees \u00e2\u20ac\u201d alleged mastermind Harriette Walters and Diane Gustus \u00e2\u20ac\u201d have been charged in the conspiracy. The other six co-defendants, including Grooms, worked outside of D.C. government, according to court papers.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It also cost D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi his $92,000 pay raise, according to the Washington Post<\/a>;<\/p>\n

Congress has blocked a $92,400 pay raise for D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar M. Gandhi, another blow for the embattled leader in the wake of the embezzlement scandal at the city’s tax office.<\/p>\n

The news came as federal prosecutors charged an eighth person in the property tax case, Alethia O. Grooms, a Prince George’s County real estate agent. They also said they are investigating evidence suggesting that the operation could date to 1990, nearly a decade earlier than thought. Prosecutors did not detail their evidence in court papers, making only passing reference to a suspicious 1990 property tax check made out to Grooms. Prosecutors said she received two fraudulent refund checks this year from the District’s tax office.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The fact that Gandhi ISN’T getting his raise is making much more news than the fact that DC decided to give him the raise (to keep him from jumping ship to AMTRAK – another federal boondoggle). He doesn’t deserve it – if he can’t care for the people’s money more, he doesn’t deserve more for himself. And I’ll bet AMTRAK doesn’t want his incompetent ass, either.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

It’s a mystery to me why so few people outside of the Beltway aren’t paying attention to this – DC money is Federal tax\u00c2\u00a0money. The money has been traced into Maryland and Virginia,\u00c2\u00a0everytime I mention Walter’s name,\u00c2\u00a0I get hits from\u00c2\u00a0St. Thomas. This isn’t a local event, yet the discussion has been strictly local. The only other blogger I know that has mentioned the case is Blue Crab Boulevard<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Washington Examiner reports this morning that the Harriet “Mother” Walters scandal that has drained at … Tax scandal reaches back to the ’90s<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","category-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1000"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1000\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}