Imagine that... Another case of government corruption - Immigration and Customs Enfor

Imagine that... Another case of government corruption

By GOPUSA Staff May 1, 2012 12:24 pm


In a scam topping half a million dollars, a top executive in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency and his team submitted expense reports for trips, hotels, rental cars, food, and more. What's the problem? Nothing, except that the trips never happened; the cars were never used; and the food was never eaten. Instead, the taxpayer funds went directly into the pockets of the officials.

In a brazen criminal scheme to defraud taxpayers, one of the highest-ranking officials in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to helping embezzle more than $500,000 from the federal government.

Over three years, James Woosley and at least five other ICE employees scammed the agency by fabricating expenses for trips that were never taken and for hotel, rental car and restaurant expenses that did not exist, according to court records.

His son, also named James Woosley, and live-in girlfriend, Lateisha Rollerson -- both ICE employees -- allegedly ran the scam out of the elder Woosley's two Virginia homes.

Video at the page link

Read the full story at Fox News


» Imagine that… Another case of government corruption » Fresh Ink -- GOPUSA

Another great, well written article by William La Juenesse.

Top ICE figure pleads guilty in brazen, $600G scam

By William La Jeunesse
Published May 01, 2012
FoxNews.com

In a brazen criminal scheme to defraud taxpayers, one of the highest-ranking officials in the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency pleaded guilty Tuesday in federal court to helping embezzle $600,000 from the federal government.

Over three years, James Woosley and at least five other ICE employees scammed the agency by fabricating expenses for trips that were never taken and for hotel, rental car and restaurant expenses that did not exist, according to court records.

His son and Woosley's live-in girlfriend, Lateisha Rollerson -- both ICE employees -- allegedly ran the scam out of the elder Woosley's two Virginia homes.

Here's how it worked, according to court records:

ICE employees traveled to Washington, D.C., on business, but instead of staying at a hotel, they stayed with Woosley. Rollerson allegedly created false receipts from hotels like the local Marriott, while Woosley approved their fraudulent expense reports and charged each employee a kick-back fee for half the amount.

Prosecutors accused Woosley of receiving about $188,000, some of which he used to buy a new house and a boat.

Sources inside ICE tell Fox News the scam represents total breakdown of oversight within the agency, especially given the periodic background checks and financial examinations given to agents working within the sensitive Office of Intelligence.

"It tells us that the vetting process and the checks and balances, the internal controls at ICE, obviously are inadequate," said Rep. Candice Miller, R-Mich., who sits on the House Committee on Homeland Security.

"It's bad enough you find some employees, federal employees, who are misusing taxpayer dollars," Miller said. "However, in this case, these are ... intelligence officers that are handling classified information."

One ICE employee involved was Ahmed Abdallat, the agency's intelligence supervisor in El Paso, Texas. Abdallat, a former colonel in the Jordanian Air Force, joined the agency in 1995 and worked throughout the Middle East, including three years in Saudi Arabia.

Abdallat's salary was by no means enough to make him rich, yet in 2010 he made three wire transfers to Middle Eastern accounts totaling $570,000, and he maintained personal accounts in Jordan totaling $1.2 million, authorities say.

Shannon Enochs, an FBI special agent, said during a lengthy court hearing that the FBI does not know where Abdallat got the money but doubted he made it working as a civil servant within the U.S. or Jordanian governments.

Abdallat travelled to D.C. at least 13 times in 2009 and 2010. Each time he submitted travel vouchers that allegedly contained fictitious charges not supported by any receipts or fake receipts created by Rollerson on her home computer. Each time, ICE paid.

More serious, however, were his trips to Jordan. Federal prosecutors charged him with eight counts of misusing a diplomatic passport he was not supposed to have to fly to Jordan.

During a search warrant of Abdallat's home in El Paso, the FBI reported pulling out 29 boxes of evidence, including two Jordanian passports he denied having during background checks in 2000, 2005 and 2010. He also denied having foreign bank accounts, though the FBI found several written in Arabic after serving their search warrant.

As a life-long intelligence officer with clearance to secret and classified papers on terrorism, narcotics and human smuggling along the Southwest border, Abdallat's file should have received priority review. Instead, he maintained close personal and financial ties to Jordan, apparently without suspicion.

Four of the five suspects indicted by the U.S. Attorney's Office in this ICE scam already pleaded guilty to embezzlement and received one to two years in prison.

Read more: Top ICE figure pleads guilty in brazen, $600G scam | Fox News

ADDED TO ALIPAC HOMEPAGE News with amended title ..

http://www.alipac.us/content/imagine...oms-enfor-458/

I feel great empathy for all the honest Border Patrol and ICE agents out there each day putting their lives on the line while their senior executives are sitting behind their fancy desks are raping this country blind. Is it any wonder we can't get illegal immigration, Mexican gang drug cartels, or the border under control?

We Need More Support if We Are Going to Take Down these Amnesty Supporters http://www.alipac.us/images/alipac_s...edit_small.png

by ALIPAC
Published on 04-30-2012 12:21 PM Number of Views: 243

Friends of ALIPAC,

Many of you are always saying you really want to throw these Amnesty supporters out of office so now is your chance!

ALIPAC is in a great position to play a deciding role in two important ...

Interesting how he made all of that money and that he was stationed in EL PASO.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Newmexican

Interesting how he made all of that money and that he was stationed in EL PASO.

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As the Fox video alluded, and is obvious this is just the tip of the titanic. Location, location, location!

This is more on another of the conspirators. Ahmed Adil Abdallat got a slap on the wrist with 1 year in prison.

Second former ICE worker pleads guilty in travel voucher kickback scheme

By Andrew Becker, The Washington Post
December 26, 2011

A former intelligence specialist with Immigration and Customs Enforcement pleaded guilty last week to embezzling more than $50,000, the second agency employee recently convicted in an unfolding travel voucher kickback scheme that stretches from Arizona to Washington.

William J. Korn, 53, of Tucson admitted in a plea agreement to a felony charge of aiding and abetting the conversion of public money for his role in the scheme.

Korn, while on temporary assignment in Washington, claimed reimbursements for expensive hotel lodging rates while he lived in an Alexandria house that he leased with two other ICE employees, court records show.

As part of a plea deal, Korn agreed to forfeit $50,832.49, money he fraudulently claimed. Korn’s attorney, David Benowitz, declined to comment. Korn contends that he turned most of the money over to a supervisor and another ICE employee, records show.

Korn is the second former ICE employee to plead guilty to embezzlement in recent months. In October, Ahmed Adil Abdallat, a former intelligence analyst in El Paso, admitted to stealing at least $70,000 he obtained through travel vouchers, among other charges. A sentencing hearing for Abdallat is scheduled for next month. He faces as much as 10 years in prison plus restitution, the amount of which will be set at sentencing.

The federal investigation has entangled at least two other former ICE employees, including an acting intelligence chief, James M. Woosley, and his assistant, Leticia Rollerson, an FBI agent testified in March in Federal District Court in El Paso.

Based in Washington, Woosley and Rollerson resigned within weeks of each other earlier this year. Neither has been arrested or charged. They could not be reached for comment.

Abdallat admitted that he submitted vouchers for travel reimbursement totaling more than $116,000 between February 2009 and September 2010, according to court documents. An FBI agent testified that Abdallat sent an estimated $58,000 to other ICE employees involved in the scheme, including Woosley and Rollerson.

Korn admitted to working with a supervisor in his chain of command and the supervisor’s assistant. Both were based in Washington and lived in Virginia.

William Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, would not comment on the case as the investigation continues. He would not say whether the supervisor and the assistant are Woosley and Rollerson.

According to records, in October 2008 Korn agreed to lease the house with the other two ICE employees, where they would all reside. Korn agreed to pay rent and utilities for the house with temporary duty reimbursement funds.

He submitted travel vouchers of as much as $10,000 a month for more expensive hotel lodging rates while each month pocketing about $3,000 more than he was due. Other ICE contractors lived in the house at times and paid about $500 each in rent to the ICE supervisor and the other employee, records show.

In February 2009, Korn was offered a permanent assignment in Washington. He delayed accepting that position because the supervisor wanted to extend Korn’s temporary status to continue to use the reimbursement funds to pay rent and utilities for the Alexandria house, records show.

Korn eventually declined the transfer but was told to continue filing pay vouchers so the supervisor could buy a house in Stafford. After he moved back to Arizona in July 2009, the assistant told Korn to file more travel vouchers to pay rent for the Alexandria house.

Partly out of fear of retribution, Korn submitted fake vouchers until December 2009, when he told the assistant he wouldn’t pay rent anymore, records show.

No sentencing date has been set for Korn. His next court hearing is slated for late January. He faces up to a year in prison and a fine of as much as $20,000.
- The Washington Post

It is interesting that Woosley directed the agency’s Arizona field intelligence group in Tucson until 2009, just about the time Fast and Furious was in full swing and so far these guys are getting wrist slaps.


ICE contract worker implicated in travel voucher kickback scheme

By Andrew Becker,
Published: January 16, 2012


An intelligence contract employee with Immigration and Customs Enforcement faces a charge of embezzling more than $54,000, the third defendant in an expanding probe of a travel voucher kickback scheme.

Stephen E. Henderson, 61, of Asheville, N.C., is scheduled to appear Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Washington for an arraignment and plea agreement hearing stemming from a conversion-of-public-money charge.
Henderson, a senior lead intelligence analyst with the agency’s Office of Intelligence, declined to comment when reached by phone.

William Jackson Garber, Henderson’s attorney, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Henderson filed fake expense reimbursement claims from about July 2008 to October 2010, with the help of two unnamed ICE employees, the charging document says. The other two employees were a supervisor and the supervisor’s assistant.

Henderson is the second ICE intelligence employee charged in the past month and the third within a year as part of the scheme. Prosecutors are also seeking a judgment of $54,387.62 against Henderson. The amount of money stolen by the three defendants exceeds $221,000, records say.

The first of the three defendants, Ahmed Abdil Abdallat, is scheduled to be sentenced Wednesday in U.S. District Court in western Texas. A former intelligence analyst in El Paso, Abdallat admitted in October that he submitted fraudulent travel vouchers totaling $116,392.84 between February 2009 and September 2010, court records show. Prosecutors are seeking a monetary judgment against Abdallat. He also faces up to 10 years in prison.

A second defendant, William J. Korn, pleaded guilty last month to defrauding the government of more than $50,000 in a similar scheme. Korn admitted that he worked with an unnamed supervisor in his chain of command and the supervisor’s unnamed assistant to submit fake travel voucher claims. A sentencing date has not been set for Korn. He faces up to a year in prison and a possible fine of as much as $20,000.

The federal probe, investigated by the FBI, the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general’s office and ICE, involves at least two other former employees, a former acting intelligence chief, James M. Woosley, and his assistant, Leticia Rollerson, according to court testimony.

Woosley and Rollerson resigned from their Washington-based jobs within weeks of each other last year. Neither has been arrested or charged. They could not be reached for comment.

Woosley’s domestic assignments included posts in Washington, El Paso, Los Angeles, Tucson and Phoenix, according to his biography, which was removed early last year from the agency’s Web site.

Before his June 2009 appointment as acting intelligence chief, Woosley directed the agency’s Arizona field intelligence group in Tucson.

Henderson’s official duty station was Tucson until Aug. 26, 2009, when his company changed his assignment to Fairfax, according to the court document. Henderson lived in a rental house in Tucson that belonged to the unnamed ICE supervisor. The supervisor and his assistant were based in Washington.

William Miller, spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Washington, declined to comment on the ongoing investigation.

ICE contract worker implicated in travel voucher kickback scheme - The Washington Post

What happened to Leticia Rollerson?