Consultant stole $3.6 from Dept of Education for luxury cars, real estate speculation

[alp227]

NY Times: "Consultant to the Schools Stole Millions, Officials Say":

Aided by lax oversight and by corporations that profited from his scheme, a former technology consultant stole $3.6 million over six years from the Department of Education to finance flashy cars and real estate speculation, federal authorities said on Thursday.

The investigation revealed another embarrassing lack of supervision in one of the city’s technology projects, just four months after federal authorities charged seven people in what they called an $80 million scheme to steal from CityTime, an automated payroll system that ballooned in cost to more than $700 million, nearly 10 times over budget. It also comes as the Education Department plans to invest more than half a billion dollars next year to upgrade Internet access in every school.

As in the CityTime case, the charges revealed on Thursday revealed the enormous responsibilities and power given to technology consultants working on city projects.

The former consultant, Willard Lanham, 58, surrendered to federal authorities on Thursday on charges of mail fraud and theft from a billion-dollar school-wiring and Internet-access project financed partly by the federal government.

[tk2kewl]

1. read on...

(parentheses mine)

(Mr. Lanham) used layers of contractors and subcontractors to hide his scheme, and each of them profited a little from it... The ompany, for its part, charged Verizon or I.B.M., the two major vendors, more than what it had paid Mr. Lanham.

...Verizon and I.B.M., in turn, billed the Education Department... Verizon marked up the bills by $800,000, and I.B.M. by $400,000

The companies (Verizon and IBM) have not been implicated in the criminal case

So, basically, if your are small time crook without the corporate crown, off to jail with you. But if your one of the big guys it's just part of the scam to tax the middle class and funnel the money to the rich.

[Buzz Clik]

2. OP title should be "$3.6 million"

$3.6 would still be stealing but not as noteworthy.

[Smarmie Doofus]

3. "Consulting" is where the $$$ is. And, of course .....

...privatization.