Former FEMA Supervisor Indicted in Hurricane Katrina Relief Fraud Case

Karma can be a supreme bitch!  Slowly true stories, considered folktales and rumors after Katrina, are coming to light and it's a disgusting story all round. (The image is of contaminated trailers on their way to New Orleans 4 months after the floods. Better late, than never, right? High levels of formaldehyde were discovered in the trailers many months, even years later. Click to embiggen.) 

From the TP:

A former FEMA supervisor and the owner of a disaster services company were indicted Friday by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiracy, wire fraud and witness tampering stemming from their participation in what the government contends was the illegal awarding of a contract worth up to $100 million to service and deactivate thousands of trailers in Plaquemines Parish in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
If convicted of the conspiracy and wire fraud charges, former FEMA employee Robert Blevins, 74, of South Carolina, and 3-D Disaster Services Inc. owner David Dangler, 58, of Roatan, Honduras, face a maximum of 25 years in prison and $500,000 in fines. Blevins also faces up to three years in prison on the witness-tampering charge.
Prosecutors also will attempt to recover $31 million paid to the disaster services company.
Blevins was an accounting property officer and contracting officer’s technical representative with the Federal Emergency Management Agency when he advised Dangler on how to successfully underbid for the contract in 2006, according to the indictment. During the time he was assisting Dangler’s company, he also was negotiating to work for it, the indictment said.
At the time, 3-D was based in Fort Pierce, Fla., and Blevins lived in Texarkana, Texas.
Blevins, who had worked for FEMA since 1997, had acted as the FEMA technical representative on an earlier contract between the agency and Dangler and his company.
That meant the company and Dangler were prohibited from participating in other federal contracts in which Blevins was involved, according to the indictment.
Blevins also was prohibited from assisting or advising the company and from seeking employment with the company until he was granted permission by the proper FEMA official.
Instead, according to the indictment, beginning in January 2006, Dangler and a person identified as B.S.D. worked with Blevins and his girlfriend, identified as “K.L.,” to prepare the 3-D contract. In doing so, they falsified the firm’s number of employees and their qualifications.
The paperwork was submitted to FEMA on Jan. 16 of that year. Two months later, 3-D was awarded the contract, which was to begin in May.
Between November 2005 and April 2006, Dangler and Blevins had discussed Blevins going to work for 3-D if FEMA awarded it the contract, according to the indictment, including at a meeting at the Hilton Riverside in New Orleans. The company paid to fly Blevins and his girlfriend to New Orleans.
On April 14, 2006, Blevins resigned from FEMA, according to the indictment. Between June and November, he was hired by unnamed joint venture companies owned by an individual identified in the indictment as “T.C.” who was also “involved” with the 3-D Disaster Services contract. In 2007 and 2008, Blevins was paid directly by 3-D with proceeds from the FEMA contract, according to the indictment.
Blevins failed to inform FEMA of the job offer and failed to get permission to discuss it, again in violation of federal regulations, the indictment said. But both Dangler and Blevins told others that Blevins had written permission from FEMA’s ethics officer allowing him to go to work for the company and to participate in the contract talks, and that Dangler had confirmed that approval in a conversation with the ethics officer.
The disaster services company was paid more than $31 million by FEMA between May 2006 and January 2010. The indictment does not say anything about the quality of the firm’s work.

The incompetence of FEMA and its failure to perform background checks to avoid this kind of activity is mind-boggling. No wonder the agency isn't taken seriously anymore. Credibility is gone. It's all a money-grabbing joke perpetrated on the American public who suffer at the hands of these trolls.

Read the rest HERE.

And so it goes.
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