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| -Lurid Crime Tales- |
| Former Acorn and Schools Employee Is Accused of Fraud |
| 2009-12-03 |
| The free corporate rewards gifts arrived by the dozens: $5,000 I.B.M. gift certificates, $500 travel coupons, Broadway show tickets, tickets to Met and Yankee games. The only problem was that, according to city schools investigators, it was all based on a fraud. Investigators on Tuesday alleged that a Brooklyn-based bookkeeper and community organizer for the beleaguered antipoverty group Acorn improperly received $500,000 in merchandise for a corporate rewards program with Verizon, the telephone company, through a complex fraud scheme that went on for more than four years. "She left no stone unturned," said Richard J. Condon, the special commissioner of investigation for the city's schools. Investigators said the fraud began in 2004, when the woman, Donnett Davis, was working at the financial desk at a Brooklyn office of Acorn. She opened a corporate rewards program for Acorn's 10 to 20 phone lines with Verizon, but put her name as the recipient to get the rewards herself, she told investigators, according to a report submitted to Joel I. Klein, the schools chancellor, on Tuesday. Shortly afterward, investigators allege, Ms. Davis added about 9,000 Department of Education phone lines to her rewards account. With millions of dollars in billings, the trickle of reward points became a roaring torrent of gift certificates, L. L. Bean merchandise and other free items, investigators said. It is not known how Ms. Davis got access to the Department of Education numbers, but Mr. Cordon said he suspected that she may have had help from someone within the department or Verizon. "We're not alleging she did it alone," Mr. Cordon said. "Quite frankly, we would be surprised if she did." New York Acorn terminated Ms. Davis's employment in April 2008, Arthur Schwartz, counsel for Acorn, said Tuesday. Shortly afterward, Ms. Davis went to work directly for the Department of Education, as the parent coordinator for an Acorn-affiliated school, the Acorn High School for Social Justice in Brooklyn. There, the fraud continued, investigators said, until Verizon discovered the suspicious activity in October 2008 while auditing its accounts, and the Department of Education began an investigation. Ms. Davis resigned from her schools job in August, the letter to Mr. Klein said. The matter has been referred to prosecutors. Ms. Davis could not be reached for comment on Tuesday; a man who answered the phone at her listed number said that it was the wrong number. On Tuesday, Mr. Schwartz, the lawyer for Acorn, pledged to cooperate with investigation. "During the investigation Acorn was made aware that Ms. Davis apparently used the names of seven current and former Acorn employees to perpetrate her fraudulent acts," he said in a statement. "None of these current or former employees were aware of her activity nor have they been accused of any wrongdoing." |
| Posted by:Fred |