Some people pocket sugar and sweeteners off restaurant tables. Others steal a few thousand bucks from the treasury of kids’ soccer, baseball and hockey leagues or the PTA. Only a small percentage of stealing makes it into the news. But the stories are often astounding and/or amusing. Here’s a small sample.
If your library books are over-due the fine is 25 cents a day. And it was a cinch for library assistants to pocket the money, which can addup. An audit in 2010 found employees in three different branch libraries had walked off with a total of $9,000 in little more than one year.
A manager with the Philadelphia Housing Authority pleaded guilty to extorting $25,000 from contractors. Her lawyer argued that practically everyone at PHA stole. The lawyer declared that her client learned to steal from her superiors. The work environment was “amoral with a prevailing atmosphere of corruption,” declared the lawyer.
Eight principals of Philadelphia schools were accused of mishandling a total of $50,000 in SEPTA tokens that were sold to the students. In one school, the shortage was $19,000. (This may not be surprising because Philly school principals are members of the Teamsters Union.)
Speaking of SEPTA, investigators often encounter 10 passengers on a bus involved in an accident. Then 15 people file law suits claiming injuries.
When a high ranking court administrator with 34 years on the job started having financial difficulties, she simply stole $78,000.
A lot of founders and administrators of Philly charter school have gone to jail. One guy pocketed $90,000 from the school’s scholarship fund.
Perhaps, just living in Philadelphia will turn a high-paid celebrity into a crook. Take long-time TV sports reporter, Don Tollefson. He hailed from California and earned big bucks in Philly at WPVI-TV and later, Fox TV. Everybody liked and trusted Don. So, more than 100 trusting fans paid big bucks for out-of- town sporting events. Don said part of the money would “go to charity.” Tollefson was convicted of stealing $340,000. The packages (tickets, transportation, accommodations) were 100 percent bogus. Tallefson blamed booz for his stealing.
Anita Guzzardi claimed addiction to gambling and shopping for stealing $900,000 from the Catholic Archdiocese. She was the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of the church.
Another church person with the same addictions to gambling and high-living was Monsignor William Dombrow. He was administrator of a home for retired, elderly and ill priests. Donations and life insurance of dead priests etc, were diverted into the bank account of the crooked clergyman. Over nine years Dombrow stole more than half a million bucks.
The variety and number of medical-related scams is staggering. For example, Dr. Martin Spector illegally sold body parts. including entire human heads, fresh from the city morgue to distant medical schools.
Pill mills galore and several crooked ambulance squads thrived here. Endless methods of cheating insurance and the government. found a home in Philly.
Several chiropractors in Philly and the suburbs have gone to jail for bogus billing. One criminal network set up by a cheating chiropractor involved 70 people with “bad backs” and a crooked cop. They netted more than $600,000. Another group said to have scammed $10 million in phony billing had a chain of back-pain pain clinics.
Our favorite “chiropractor” scam man was Tahib Smith Ali who operated a center city office called Oasis Holistic Healing Village. Ali's middle name should be Chutzpah. By billing Blue Cross for $1.5 million in only 11 months, he set a national record. Even more interesting, Ali wasn’t a chiropractor. He had no medical training. By now his 6-year prison term is complete.
Speaking of chutzpah, a special award for greed and larceny should be awarded to Calvin Duncan who worked in the mail room of the city Water Department. Part of his job was purchasing office supplies. Over six years he spent $1.3 million of taxpayer’s money for ink and toner cartridges. Then he sold the stuff at a discount, to a buyer in Arkansas-- for a nice profit of $500,000, according to police.
Let us close this essay on a pleasant note by paying tribute to the imagination and hard work of two nice scam artists. They were parking lot attendants. One worked in a lot at 12th and Spring Garden streets. The other attended a lot on the Ben Franklin Parkway in front of the Art Museum. Both were polite and courteous. Both wore work uniforms. Both men collected $5 parking fees. Neither “attendant” turned the money over to anyone. Drivers mistakenly thought they were employees of some company. The “attendants” simply saw an opportunity for a little graft and took the job - since no one else was doing it.