Feds investigating premier work program for disabled after CNN reports
Feds investigating premier work program for disabled after CNN reports
(CNN) – A federal grand jury is examining the nation’s premier program that
provides work for people who are severely disabled, after a series of CNN
investigative
reports detailing allegations of corruption and cronyism in what sources say
could be the biggest fraud case ever in a U.S. government agency.
CNN has learned government investigators have issued grand jury subpoenas as
they investigate the huge taxpayer-funded program, known as AbilityOne, and
specifically its managing agency, SourceAmerica.
Along with bid rigging and corruption, grand jury investigators are looking
into allegations the program is operating numerous contracts illegally, and
not hiring enough disabled people to fill contracts as required by law, as CNN
detailed in earlier reports.
The AbilityOne and SourceAmerica program dole out hundreds of
multimillion-dollar contracts to scores of organizations. To get a contract,
75% of a company’s
work must be performed by the severely disabled, people who cannot get work
elsewhere.
Yet, numerous sources have told CNN that SourceAmerica awards contracts
unfairly, giving lucrative deals to companies with inside connections. Some
SourceAmerica
board members have also worked at companies that are awarded big contracts.
One such example is outlined in a lawsuit alleging bid-rigging, one of several
suits filed against AbilityOne and SourceAmerica in recent years.
The suit was filed by Ruben Lopez, owner of Bona Fide Conglomerates, a company
that lost its contract cleaning the federal courthouse in Las Vegas. He alleged
the contract was taken away and given to another company that had an official
sitting on the board of directors at SourceAmerica.
Eventually, Lopez settled the Las Vegas contract dispute with SourceAmerica. As
part of the settlement, SourceAmerica agreed to treat Lopez’s company more
fairly, even appointing their top lawyer, Jean Robinson, to work with him.
But Lopez said his company was blackballed instead and received no more
contracts. Lopez sued SourceAmerica again, claiming it violated the settlement
agreement,
and that claim is now ongoing in the courts.
Lopez became so disgusted with how corrupt the process was that he began
working with federal investigators and secretly recorded conversations between
himself and Robinson.
Those recordings, which CNN obtained independently, are now part of the federal
investigation, having been requested under the grand jury subpoena.
The recordings are striking, among other reasons, because Robinson compared her
company’s leadership to the leadership of the mafia.
“They’re like — they’re like the mafia, I mean, and they pride themselves in
it. They don’t care,” Robinson is heard saying in one part of the recordings.
“You know, we are dealing with the mafia here, the old — the old SourceAmerica
mafia,” she said in another recording.
On the recordings, Robinson confides she is nervous about being set up by a
board of directors she claims has been fraudulently awarding contracts for
decades.
“People have been doing it for so many years, and they’re not going to stop,”
she said. “They’re just — it’s like an addiction. They’re just, so much time
has passed, they’ve been getting away with it for, you know, for what, 25
years, and they don’t know how to do it different.”
Officials at SourceAmerica and AbilityOne repeatedly declined interviews with
CNN, issuing statements denying fraud, corruption, cronyism, bid rigging,
or illegal activity.
The recordings of Robinson, SourceAmerica writes, are “factually inaccurate and
untrue.” The statement notes that Lopez, head of what it calls a “disgruntled”
nonprofit, is suing Source America. The statement goes on to say “SourceAmerica
is continuing to vigorously defend itself against these unfounded allegations.”
Source:
http://www.wlsam.com/news/feds-investigating-premier-work-program-for-disabled-after-cnn-reports/
