The videos below expose examples of Political and Public Corruption being brought to a halt by Federal Authorities.
The first video shows members of New Jersey Governor's Cabinet being arrested amid a sweeping corruption investigation which ensnared three mayors, two state legislators and several Rabbis.
In the second video news of former NC House Speaker Jim Black (Democrat) being sentenced to Federal Prison for Political and Public Corruption.
Don't worry Charlotte, NC isn't too far behind.
There IS going to be a Federal bust in Charlotte with several prominent local Politicians being carted away in handcuffs for all the Nation to see.
(Remember Jim Black)
Don't believe me?
Listen there's tons of Political and Public Corruption in North Carolina, Charlotte included.
Do you think these crooks (the female ones too) are going to slide by forever without getting caught?
In case you haven't heard according to a recent Gallup Poll report, President Obama is losing White Voter support fast (39%). (White Flight!)
Thus even if the majority of Charlotte's Black Voters choose to ignore local Political and Public Corruption, Charlotte's White Voters won't.
Perhaps Charlotte's Delusional, Country bumpkin Leaders haven't realized it yet but Pres. Obama is focused on keeping those White Voters happy.
So if Charlotte's Black Leaders think they can continue being corrupt without serious repercussions, they are sadly mistaken.
To sum it up Charlotte Politicians (not all, just the Corrupt ones) won't be able to hide behind Pres. Obama's coattails forever.
Nor Charlotte's new Democratic Mayor Anthony Foxx for that matter.
Why?
Pres. Obama is a Professional Politician through and through. (Surprise!)
This isn't a bad or negative thing, its just a simple fact. Nothing more, nothing less.
Just because Pres. Obama called Anthony Foxx to congratulate him on his recent mayoral win, doesn't mean Pres. Obama is going to look the other way as it relates to Charlotte's Political and Public Corruption.
Especially if that Corruption threatens his Political Career.
In essence Charlotte's Corrupt Politicans (Male & Female) are going down!
Like I mentioned above there IS going to be a Federal bust in Charlotte with several prominent local Politicians being carted away in handcuffs for all the Nation to see.
Don't believe me?
You'll see. Just watch.
Now check out the videos below. Charlotte isn't too far behind.
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Former House Speaker Jim Black was sentenced to 63 months in prison on a federal corruption charge.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Commissioners want closed-door meeting on DSS
Charlotte-Mecklenburg County Commissioners want the board to hold a closed-door meeting as soon as next week to shed more light on an ongoing investigation into the Department of Social Services, including a charity that bought gifts for needy children.
Commissioner Bill James sent the request in an email overnight to county commissioners and top county staff, including County Manager Harry Jones and DSS Director Mary Wilson. He said it was sent on behalf of the board's three Republicans, which also include Karen Bentley and Neil Cooksey.
The request follows a story in Sunday's Observer detailing an internal memo from a former employee who headed the Giving Tree charity.
James said he wants the board to talk about the issue in closed session as soon as Dec. 17. He said in an interview this morning that in order to hold the meeting, he'll need to get at least two of the board's Democrats to sign on to the idea.
“Over the past few months it has become clear that there are a variety of aspects to the current DSS situation that seems to remain unanswered,” James wrote in the email.
The email was addressed to county attorneys Marvin Bethune and Tyrone Wade and clerk to the commissioners, Janice Paige. He asked the attorneys to weigh in on the prospect of having a meeting, and let them know of any changes or issues they have about the matter.
James said if federal and local law enforcement are involved, he did not want the meeting to hinder their work. The county has said it asked Charlotte-Mecklenburg police months ago to help gather information about its probes into DSS spending, but officials have said they can't comment further on what law enforcement may be looking into.
James said that even as law enforcement is involved, “It also seems to be equally clear that current and former employees of DSS wish to be heard and there are matters and details that the Commission could be apprised of that are currently withheld.”
James said they'd like to invite current and former employees to weigh in, including former county general manager and one-time interim DSS head Janice Allen Jackson and Cindy Brady, a former DSS employee who volunteered with the Giving Tree.
The email states that the county may be able to call the meeting based on a state statute that says commissioners may act as the “board of social services.”
Agenda for Charlotte-Mecklenburg DSS Fraud Probe Closed Meeting Request
Some county commissioners want the board to hold a closed-door meeting as soon as next week to shed more light on an ongoing investigation into the Department of Social Services, including a charity that bought gifts for needy children.
Commissioner Bill James sent the request in an email overnight to county commissioners and top county staff, including County Manager Harry Jones and DSS Director Mary Wilson. He said it was sent on behalf of the board's three Republicans, which also include Karen Bentley and Neil Cooksey.
Here is his proposed agenda:
Mecklenburg Board of Commissioners
Action Item – (DRAFT at 12-6-2009)
December 15, 2009
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Subject: Schedule a closed session meeting of the Mecklenburg Board of County Commissioners operating as the ‘Board of Social Services’ to discuss various matters related to DSS for Noon on December 17, 2009.
ACTION: A motion to schedule a meeting of the County Commission operating as the ‘Board of Social Services’ within the meaning of NCGS 90B-6, NCGS 153A-77 and other statutes for Noon on December 17, 2009 and to also:
A.) Instruct the Board of Social Services’ employee, Director Mary Wilson, who is a direct hire of the Board of County Commissioners, to appear at this meeting and to provide answers to certain questions and to provide documents as requested by the members of the Board of Social Services in advance of that meeting.
B.) Instruct the Director of Social Services to make her supervisors and employees (especially those in DSS Finance) available to the Board of Social Services for questioning in private without management present.
C.) Offer an invitation to former acting DSS head Janice Allen Jackson to appear at this closed session and to offer private commentary about the DSS.
D.) Offer an invitation to former DSS ‘Giving Tree’ employees to appear at this closed session and to offer private commentary about DSS’ Giving Tree program.
E.) Instruct the County Manager to make available to the Commissioners copies of any and all internal memo’s produced by internal Audit and senior management involving DSS matters from the last 12 months for the Board to review (including all of those classified as ‘personnel matters’.
F.) Instruct the County Manager to provide to the Commission a detailed list of gifts purchased for others with Giving Tree funds and his opinion as to whether these purchases actually benefited (were received by) the individuals to whom they were intended.
G.) Receive a presentation from Dena Dioro about our current expense ‘advance’ policy and whether it complies with the time requirements of IRS circular/publication 15.
H.) Provide a list to the Commission of all remaining items left in inventory in the County’s possession related to the Giving Tree program before these items were allowed to be disbursed (and their purchase price).
Commission Contact: Commissioners Karen Bentley, Neil Cooksey and Bill James
Presentation: Yes __X__ No _____
BACKGROUND/JUSTIFICATION: Recent turmoil and dissention within DSS
POLICY IMPACT: Unknown until presentation
FISCAL IMPACT: None
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg DSS Money Mystery: Where did money go?
Internal e-mails reveal new allegations of misspending at the Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services, raising more unanswered questions about what happened to money intended to help needy children.
Some of the more than 1,000 e-mails the Observer obtained through a public records request provide the most detailed account to date about the agency's accounting fiasco.
E-mails show:
Officials suspected an employee wrote $80,000 in checks to herself from donations.
An administrator questioned why other donations were used to buy $340 diamond earrings, leather coats and a $300 DVD player.
A top executive complained that a senior fiscal administrator frustrated co-workers with her "inability to explain the simplest concepts of revenue and expenses."
After nearly a year, officials have never said who was at fault for $162,000 that disappeared or whether anyone was disciplined.
No one has been charged in an ongoing police investigation and a county report says officials cannot be certain where the money went.
Meanwhile, donors are left to wonder whether their generosity ever helped buy Christmas gifts for those in need.
In one e-mail, a woman describes calling the county in 2007 to give $900 for single mothers at Christmas. The person who answered the phone told her to make a check payable to the worker's sister.
The donor said she grew suspicious and made the check out to the county, but the idea that it may still have been misused is "like a kick in the stomach."
In another e-mail, a founder of Second String Santa said he was concerned whether kids received the more than 50,000 toys his group had donated since 1989.
Will Miller said he believes some of the toys reached children, but he's not sure about the rest.
"Will we ever know? Probably not," he said.
Two commissioners said they have asked county administrators for a full accounting of what went wrong at DSS but have yet to receive answers. County officials have never explained who was responsible, they said.
"To fix it, you have to admit all the stuff that is messed up," Commissioner Bill James said. "They don't want to do too much digging."
County administrators declined interview requests. Instead, a county spokesman released a prepared statement saying appropriate fiscal controls have been installed in response to an outside audit and an internal investigation.
"Our review of the e-mails we provided and your follow up questions did not reveal any new information that would suggest any change in the audit findings or in management's response to those findings," the statement said.
Some commissioners said they have been told that the employees involved have either left county government or been placed in new positions.
Unusual spending patterns
DSS spends $176 million annually and employs 1,200 workers to assist Mecklenburg's poor and neglected. The agency administers everything from food stamps to foster care and child protection services.
Last spring, DSS Director Mary Wilson ordered financial audits following reports of suspicious spending.
Auditors looked at multiple spending programs and financial practices in the agency. They found a $10,000 check made out to an employee, missing and altered receipts and money for kids spent on office supplies.
County leaders responded by suspending the programs, putting DSS finance under direct county control, training workers on accounting procedures and ordering a review of financial procedures in each county agency.
The Observer reviewed e-mails dating from December 2008 to July 2009 for seven current and former county administrators, including Wilson, County Manager Harry Jones, County Finance Director Dena Diorio and Internal Auditor Cornita Spears.
E-mails show county officials noticed unusual spending patterns as early as last December but did not disclose problems to the public until March.
On New Year's Eve, Wilson told staff she had suspended a voucher program the agency used to purchase clothes and other items for clients at local stores. She wrote that officials were worried about a lack of oversight and a spike in spending.
One monthly retail bill leapt from between $5,000 and $6,000 to more than $20,000 in October 2008, the e-mail says. Employees turned in receipts only 30 to 35 percent of the time, she wrote.
At one time or another, workers possessed or had access to numerous credit cards and gift cards, including some to Bath & Body Works, Bass Pro Shops, Macy's, the Cheesecake Factory and Outback Steakhouse.
Outside auditors verified for county administrators that DSS workers possessed county-issued credit cards, including 10 credit cards for Sam's Club, three for Harris Teeter and an online charge account with amazon.com.
In February, county officials asked internal auditors to look into questionable spending, including purchases of diamond earrings, leather coats and a DVD player.
An e-mail to one of the auditors from a human resources consultant said the purchases raise "many questions and concerns."
According to the county's statement, most gifts were typical children's items such as toys, clothes and books. More expensive items such as diamond earrings and leather coats were approved purchases for foster children who reached special milestones like high school graduation, the statement says.
"Receiving a gift of some significant value was viewed as an incentive for other children who were in foster care to set goals and accomplish them," the statement said.
Commissioner Harold Cogdell said he spent part of his early childhood in foster care and believes the gifts are a good idea.
"It makes sense to me to show the kids some love," Cogdell said.
A new Accountant
DSS has endured multiple management shakeups in recent years. The latest came when Wilson reorganized the agency after she was hired in July 2008.
She laid out the reasons to hire a new finance director in a February e-mail.
Wilson wrote that the senior fiscal administrator who managed DSS finances failed to provide reports about oversight, alienated staff and lacked the ability to conduct productive discussions with senior county executives. The e-mail does not name the senior fiscal administrator.
DSS later hired accountant Angela Hurlburt to oversee its finances.
James, the commissioner, said he has asked for the names and background information on Hurlburt's predecessors. He wants them to answer questions from the Board of Commissioners' Audit Review Committee, which investigated accounting lapses at DSS.
He said administrators have failed to respond to his requests and complained that officials "keep us in the dark."
Other Commissioners disagreed.
Chairman Jennifer Roberts and Commissioner Dumont Clarke said county leaders have already put in place reforms that will protect taxpayer and donor money.
"The highest priority" is implementing new financial controls, Clarke said.
Shifting the Finances
Auditors from Cherry, Bekaert & Holland reviewed DSS and found that Mecklenburg officials responded appropriately. The county's Audit Review Committee came to the same conclusion.
But DSS Director Wilson bristled at one of the major reforms.
Leaders put DSS finance under the direct control of the county's main finance department after allegations of misspending surfaced.
In April, Wilson sent an e-mail to County General Manager Michelle Lancaster to complain. Calling the decision "premature" and "shortsighted," Wilson said there are emergencies when DSS workers must write checks immediately, including occasions when the agency takes children in custody who need clothes, toiletries and school supplies.
"I understand the urgency at the time, but there was a reason DSS had check writing capability and I think we threw the baby out with the bathwater instead of fixing the underlying issue, which is documentation and accountability," Wilson wrote.
Donors left with Questions
Past supporters of the DSS Christmas charity include Young Lawyers, employees of Wachovia and Bank of America, and Project Joy, the holiday fund drive initiated by Observer columnist Tommy Tomlinson. The Christmas charity, known as the Giving Tree, is now run by the Salvation Army.
The donor who gave $900 e-mailed the county in July after learning about accounting failures from news accounts. She attached a picture of the check copy she made around Christmas in 2007.
She wrote that she did not remember the name of the woman she spoke with on the phone.
The donor said she and her family all pitched in to raise the money so she could assist women like her who had struggled as single mothers.
When she heard there were allegations of misspending in a DSS charity program, "It's like your stomach just drops."
Spending Probe (Fraud) spreads at Charlotte-Mecklenburg DSS
A probe of misspending at a Mecklenburg County Department of Social Services Christmas charity has widened across the agency, and officials now say they are unable to say how much money may have disappeared over the years.
The county's second-largest agency, often a first stop for the community's poor or neglected, has recently been reorganized. Director Mary Wilson, hired last summer, ordered audits following reports of suspicious spending.
The audits looked at several spending programs and financial practices throughout the department.
Among the findings:
Mecklenburg County officials cannot account for $162,000 in donations meant to buy gifts for needy children. That includes a $10,000 check made out to an employee.
Of the 840 receipts inspected for that program, 799 had problems, including receipts that were altered, whited out or omitted in photocopying.
In a separate year-round program, auditors said, money meant to help foster families buy clothes and other necessities for children was spent on office supplies.
The audits cover July 2007 through this past March, but officials say they don't know whether problems started earlier because the last departmentwide audit of DSS was in 1996. Some findings have been turned over to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department.
Officials briefed county commissioners earlier this month about the audits.
But new details are emerging since officials gave a fuller account last week to the commission's audit review committee.
Committee members told county administrators they did not understand how the department failed to adhere to basic financial practices, such as requiring two signatures on checks – a standard spelled out in N.C. law.
Some asked how managers could have allowed such behavior to go unnoticed. The audit committee also appeared surprised that receipts for the department had not been checked for so many years.
Such a review was planned for next year, said Chris Waddell of the county's Internal Audit department, who said he thinks the problems cited in recent audits would have been uncovered.
When panel members asked county auditors and administrators to find out who is responsible for the problems, or how long they persisted, officials cast doubt on whether they could comply.
“There's a lot of missing documentation,” county Finance Director Dena Diorio told the committee.
On Friday, County Manager Harry Jones said officials would respond to problems laid out in the audits.
Overall, Jones said, DSS has been “well-managed,” especially in light of numerous changes in top management in recent years.
But with “an operation of that size it is difficult to be immune from problems,” he said. “We're going to address it and fix it. Hopefully, it won't be recurring.”
"Feel-good" programs
Officials said charity and emergency spending programs went unchecked by supervisors. Asked why, Wilson said people grew very trusting about “feel-good” programs. Diorio said the longtime programs simply escaped scrutiny.
County officials said some DSS programs were audited annually, but not smaller programs like the Giving Tree.
DSS spends more than $176million annually and employs about 1,200 workers.
Problems surfaced publicly this year when Wilson said she learned about irregular spending patterns in the agency's programs for poor families and foster children.
Wilson said an employee raised questions about money in the Giving Tree program. Wilson said she herself pointed to a need to audit the broader programs.
Since then, leaders have ordered multiple financial audits and suspended two workers suspected of taking $110,000 from the Giving Tree program, which solicits money to buy the holiday gifts.
Officials say they have asked Charlotte-Mecklenburg police to help investigate. One of the suspended workers has been cleared of wrongdoing and reinstated, while the other is now on medical leave. The county has not publicly identified the employees.
County officials say they are trying to determine whether there was criminal activity or just sloppy accounting.
In either case, commissioner Bill James said the findings show the county needs to re-examine how it keeps tabs on taxpayer money. James described the fiscal controls at DSS as “nonexistent.”
“There is a fundamental management control deficiency,” James said. “We have to find out why this lasted as long as it did.”
Ward Simmons, another member of the county audit committee, said there should be two goals. “Fix this for the future, and then this has to do with public confidence in the county: (identify) who's responsible for what happened in the past.”
But county administrators say they are not sure who should be held accountable.
A series of DSS Directors
DSS has had four directors in recent years.
Longtime director Richard “Jake” Jacobsen took a medical leave in 2004 and was briefly replaced in the interim by then-deputy director Brenda Jackson. Jacobsen returned in 2005, only to be reassigned as an executive-in-residence at UNC Charlotte, where he started work in January 2008.
The county appointed another interim DSS director, Janice Allen Jackson, who was also one of the county's general managers.
Director Mary Wilson replaced her last July. Allen Jackson resigned in May for personal reasons.
As a general manager Allen Jackson was responsible for helping oversee DSS for four years. She also was interim director for six months.
Allen Jackson said she was not aware of any accounting failures during her tenure with the county. “No issues were brought to me,” she told the Observer before declining further comment.
Jacobsen worked for 13 years as head of the DSS. Through a county spokesman, Jacobsen declined to comment.
Jacobsen had named a senior-level administrator to oversee DSS finances during his tenure, but county leaders said the post later was vacated. Earlier this year, Wilson recreated the post, naming Angela Hurlburt as the department's director of financial management.
Jones praised Wilson for initiating the financial audit and said she had “clearly inherited this situation.”
“These are programs deliberately designed to operate outside the traditional DSS systems,” Jones said. He said Friday the emergency nature of the charity programs may have led to mistakes. Social workers often must act quickly to address such needs as clothing, housing and medicine.
A lax culture of Accounting
County officials described a lax culture at DSS about accounting procedures.
In some cases, Wilson said, social workers made expenditures without their supervisor's approval. Other times, she said, supervisors did not document approvals for expenses.
Officials say they are unsure whether employees were trained to properly carry out the department's financial policies.
“People who work anywhere need to know what the expectations are,” said John McGillicuddy, county general manager. “And when you know that they've been given those expectations and clear terms ... you can hold them accountable. Part of our challenge is going to be who should have known that these were their responsibility.”
McGillicuddy said county management and DSS directors bear some responsibility in making sure the county is effectively managing the public's money. But he said he thinks that if any of the previous DSS directors knew a problem was occurring, that it would have been addressed.
Officials said they have already addressed issues in the audits, including the need to process all checks through the county finance department and new training for DSS workers on accounting procedures. But the audit panel and county staff said they'd like more investigation.
Commissioner Dan Murrey said the challenge will be infusing the agency with a new culture.
“There are policies and procedures and the way we've always done things,” he said. “In a sound organization those two things are closer together.”
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Sources: McClatchy Newspapers, Charlotte Observer, Charmeck.org, NY Times, MSNBC, FBI, Gallup Poll Report, NC Metro Mayors.com, WRAL, Google Maps
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