Prosecutors are pursuing a group of former DeKalb County employees who worked together to fake their overtime hours and pay kickbacks.
Four people are already imprisoned for their participation in the scheme, and DeKalb District Attorney Robert James said in an interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution last week that others will likely face criminal charges as well.
Employees in DeKalb’s Department of Watershed Management paid off a payroll manager in exchange for her approval of inflated working hours, a plot that stole at least $85,000 from the county, according to court documents and James. That number could rise if others face charges.
Prosecutors considered bringing racketeering charges, according to an arrest warrant, but the four who have been incarcerated so far agreed to plead guilty to felony theft. They’re serving sentences between one and two years.
“They knew one another, they were working with one another, and it was an organized scheme to steal money from the county. They were being paid for something they did not do,” James said. “We believe there are several individuals out there that need to be held accountable.”
Crew members in the Watershed Department, which provides water and sewer services, exaggerated the number of hours they worked during 2011, according to court documents. Cynthia Hall, a payroll technician in the department at the time, submitted the falsified hours through the county’s computerized time-keeping system, Kronos.
The crew members then paid Hall between $700 and $3,000 every other week.
Hall implicated three or four additional crew members when she pleaded guilty May 20, said Lawanda Hodges, the assistant district attorney overseeing the county's Public Integrity Unit, during a court hearing.
The investigation of others involved is continuing, James said. Their identities haven’t been revealed, and they haven’t been charged.
James said the case is part of an effort to rid DeKalb of corruption.
“People have to believe that we’re willing and able to clean up our own mess,” James said. “If they don’t believe that, it’s impossible to restore public confidence in the county.”
An attorney for Hall, 53, didn’t return phone messages and an email seeking comment. It wasn’t clear how much she collected in kickbacks, but she was ordered to pay $15,000 in restitution.
“She had befriended a number of people in the Watershed Management Department, and they had come to her and she was the one who manipulated the criminal system, and she was the one manipulating the overtime hours,” said Jim Michael, who is Hall’s attorney, according to a transcript of the May 20 plea hearing. Michael didn’t respond to requests for comment last week.
Two others who also pleaded guilty on the same day as Hall, 39-year-old Jarvis Dion Foster and 37-year-old Anthony Quinn Lee, stole about $20,000 each from the county, James said. The fourth, 48-year-old Andre Cofer, a former crew supervisor, stole about $45,000 and pleaded guilty Sept. 14.
An attorney for Foster, Molly Parmer, acknowledged that he admitted guilt but didn’t make further comments. An attorney for Lee, Charles Webb, declined to comment. An attorney for Cofer couldn’t be located.
DeKalb spokesman Burke Brennan said an internal investigation in the Watershed Department uncovered the overtime manipulation. He said the county has taken precautions to prevent similar behavior in the future.
“The message we send is clear: Illegal and/or dishonest behavior will not be tolerated,” Brennan wrote in an email. “We will investigate and we will turn over the evidence to law enforcement.”
Though the crimes occurred in 2011, they weren’t prosecuted until this year because the investigation took a long time, Hodges told DeKalb Superior Court Judge Asha Jackson in May.
The county handed its findings over to the DeKalb Police Department, which later transferred the case to the District Attorney’s Office. Then prosecutors examined 25 banker boxes full of documents, comparing foreman reports of hours worked with the computerized time-keeping system to detect discrepancies, Hodges said in court.
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