New York City to Repay $ 5.3 Million Hurricane Fraud

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New York City will return $ 5.3 million to the US government after accepting a settlement as a result of fraudulent billing for damages after Hurricane Sandy.

Wednesday's colony states that the city falsely claimed that a number of Ministry of Transportation vehicles had been damaged by the 2012 storm.

In fact, many vehicles were out of service long before Sandy.

City officials acknowledged that they approved the claims without actually inspecting the vehicles.

US lawyer, Geoffrey Berman, stressed that the government "would still take drastic enforcement action" to protect funds from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) against "fraud, waste and abuse." ".

"When people lie to Fema about the cause of property damage for an unexpected benefit, it jeopardizes Fema's ability to provide financial assistance to the legitimate victims of desperately needed disasters."

The New York City Transportation Department (NYCDOT) earned millions of dollars in Fema funds after declaring that 132 vehicles were seriously damaged by the October 29, 2012 storm.

More than a dozen US states have been affected by Hurricane Sandy. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the damage totaled $ 71 billion, making Sandy the fourth most expensive hurricane ever recorded.

In 2012, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo estimated that state damage amounted to more than $ 32 billion.

But according to federal prosecutors, NYCDOT officials "did not make any effort to inspect the vehicles or otherwise determine whether the reported damages were attributable to Sandy".

The list of claims included seven paving vehicles that the city had already classified as non-operational – some as of 2009 – as well as waste treatment equipment decommissioned in 2010.

A NYCDOT employee informed the Commissioner that some of the vehicles were not eligible for funding from Fema in June 2014, but the city did not notify the federal agency prior to the official investigation .

"Because of these false certifications, Fema paid the City millions of dollars to which it was not entitled," the complaint said.

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The government discovered that the NYCDOT deputy commissioner who approved these false allegations "lacked sufficient personal knowledge of the vehicles to certify how and when they were damaged".

In addition, the Commissioner "did not personally initiate or order other persons to conduct a vehicle investigation prior to signing certification," and the city government did not review claims for vehicles before submitting them to Fema.

Nor has the city provided any training for employees to submit these statements about the operation of the Fema program.

New York City will now return the funds it has used through a cash payment of $ 4.1 million and will not be allocated an additional $ 1.7 million that had already been approved by Fema.

A judge still has to approve the settlement.

The US prosecutor's statement also states that the city withdrew about $ 3.1 million from other claims during the investigation, acknowledging that "the costs were not eligible for a refund" .

More than 100 residents of New York and New Jersey have been accused of similar fraud as part of disaster relief in the years following Hurricane Sandy.