GOVERNMENT CONFLICTS, CORRUPTION AND INDICTMENTS

- FLORIDA -

Date	Individual / State Agency	Who, What, Where?
03/16/05	Broward Sheriff’s Office	FBI Probes Sheriff’s Office The FBI is investigating the Broward Sheriff’s Office for possible fraud. They are investigating whether the 2002-2003 crime reports have been falsified. The Sheriff’s Office submits a Uniform Crime Report to the feds to justify grant money.
05/05/05	Medicare	Armless and Legless Floridians Outrageous Medicare billing caught the attention of a federal judge in Florida when she asked the question, “Why had the government paid out so much for 21,000 sudden amputees in one location? A private firm that processes Medicare claims paid for 21,000 artificial limbs for South Floridians over a four-month period. Medicare paid the bill: $122 million. When federal prosecutors heard from seniors that they didn't need and hadn't received new limbs, they investigated and filed a civil suit against the 48 small businesses and the billing agency that had submitted the claims.
07/29/05	Miami Commissioner	What All Corrupt Politicians Should Do Former Miami Commissioner Arthur E. Teele, Jr. has been indicted on 26 federal charges of fraud and money laundering – his third charge this year. During a 15-year political career, Teele became one of Miami-Dade's most influential politicians, serving on both the Miami City Commission and the County Commission. But his life ended in a cascade of arrests and humiliating disclosures. The New Times Weekly published a sordid article detailing Teele’s alleged relationships with crooked contractors, drug dealers and a transvestite prostitute, and also documented his chronic debt and legal bills. Teele took the only action that all corrupt politicians should do in sparing the citizens expensive prosecution and further anguish. He walked into the lobby of the Herald newspaper, pulled out a revolver and shot himself in the head ending his life. Maybe the hundreds of crooked politicians in New Jersey will get the same message so the citizens of that state will be relieved of paying their pensions while they reside in the slammer.
10/01/05	Miami-Dade	Judge Indicted for Fraudulent Billing Philip Daniels, a former Miami-Dade judge, was charged Wednesday with engineering a scam to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in county and state grants for personal use through fraudulent billing. According to the Miami Herald, the good judge has a history on the dark side. He was previously acquitted of charges that he accepted bribes in the 1990s. Davis and his administrative assistant were charged with starting a bogus nonprofit, Miami Dade Resident College, to help troubled youth, and then used it to collect grant money. Davis also raised funds for a program he started to help first-time offenders stay out of prison. According to the arrest affidavit, before 2002 the school depended on about $392,000 of county and state grants it received to fund these programs. The grants had such titles as the ''Drug Elimination Grant'' and ''Family and Child Empowerment Grants,'' and came from agencies ranging from the Miami-Dade Housing Authority to the state Department of Juvenile Justice. In order to collect the grant money, Davis or Headley had to show what work had been performed, in many cases submitting time sheets and invoices for equipment. However, according to the arrest affidavit, the two also turned in fraudulent billing and inflated employee salaries to get more money.
03/01/06	Davie Town Administrator	Highly Paid Administrator Charged with Financial Misconduct Davie town administrator Chris Kovanes has been arrested three times since November and is charged with several felony counts of organized fraud, grand theft and money laundering. According to the Miami Herald, Kovanes was the highest-ranking employee in Davie making $154,000 a year. Prosecutors allege that Kovanes created shell companies and awarded these companies town contracts, funneling nearly $480,000 of taxpayer money into his own bank accounts. They say that crooks aren’t very smart, but this dope actually had one of the companies registered in his own name. At least he could have used his wife’s or sister’s name – a common practice in Chicago corruption.
04/01/06	Miami	30 Teachers Fired for Buying Continuing Education Credits According to the Miami Herald, 30 teachers have been fired, 12 have retired, 49 are still being investigated and hundreds more have been informed that they will be investigated as a part of the ongoing probe. Most of the 30 teach either driver's education or physical education via a scam run by former Palmetto Senior High teacher William McCoggle, who offered the continuing-education classes through a company called Moving on Through Education and Training (MOTET). But when he pleaded guilty to fraud in November, he admitted he did little more than sell transcripts, requiring no tests, homework or other academic work. New criminal charges may be brought against two former teachers and one current one, who called themselves ''adjunct professors'' while helping McCoggle run MOTET. According to Miami-Dade prosecutors, McCoggle collected more than $250,000 while running MOTET. Teachers -- who say they heard about MOTET primarily through word of mouth -- paid $175 per credit, of which the college received $75 and McCoggle kept $100. The noncredit courses cannot be used in Florida to meet teachers' continuing-education requirements. But the transcripts received by teachers in McCoggle's program were almost indistinguishable from those listing for-credit class work.
08/01/06	Housing Authority	Mayor Orders Housing Agency Probe Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez cited a report that found millions of dollars squandered on failed housing projects and called for yet another investigation. Alvarez, who based his 2004 mayoral campaign on an anti-corruption platform, called on the County Manager, George Burgess, to find out what went wrong and to discipline those responsible. Ironically, after Housing Director Alphonso Brewster resigned in April, his office began an inquiry to track the agency’s money. Burgess called for the first audit of the agency in five years. HOW DO THESE STATE AND LOCAL AGENCIES GET AWAY WITHOUT BEING AUDITED? The Miami Herald’s investigation found the agency doled out millions of dollars to well-connected developers, who built little or nothing. County Commissioner Chairman Joe Martinez told Burgess that the Miami Herald report, “depict an exuberant disregard for the public trust that appears to have disenfranchised the neediest in our community.” The big question is, “Why are these scandals only uncovered by federal prosecutors or the news media and NEVER by the authorities themselves?” That strongly suggests that the level of graft and corruption exposed by these organizations is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.