2010
When he checked out six days later, his bill totaled $2,645.98, including $413 for a couples massage, $80 a day in club charges and $12.50 for smoky almonds from the in-room minibar.
Voll paid the charges with a government-issued credit card and later claimed they were legitimate business expenses. In reality, they were part of a four-year string of falsified travel spending that resulted in taxpayers picking up the tab for luxury hotel stays, gourmet meals, massages and other frills.
In August, a federal judge in San Francisco arranged a different sort of stay for Voll – three months in prison, followed by one year of probation. He also was fined $100,000.
Voll had pleaded guilty four months earlier to embezzling public funds, after being charged with defrauding the government of more than $60,000. Prosecutors had recommended a sentence of 10 months in prison, plus a year of probation.
It was unclear from the case file what tipped off the GSA to Voll’s activities, or why they were not detected sooner.
A database of the agency‘s travel expenses, obtained by JunketSleuth through Freedom of Information Act requests, show that Voll accounted for the largest dollar amount of spending by any GSA employee from 2007 through 2009.
The database lists the actual expenditures on Voll’s trips at just over $250,000, which was more than 30 percent higher than any other employee.
Voll was deputy regional commissioner for the GSA’s Public Buildings Service, which oversees government-owned properties in a territory that includes California, Hawaii, Guam and American Samoa. In light of his job, some significant travel expenditures were understandable. But given that Voll was based in San Francisco and had a home in the Bay Area, the local hotel bills should have set off alarms.
According to documents filed in connection with his criminal case, he racked up more than $10,000 in charges for five stays at luxury San Francisco hotels between September 2008 and April 2009.
The bill for the first of those stays, also at the Intercontinental San Francisco, showed that Voll paid $750 the first night and $1,350 the second night for a one-bedroom suite on the 30th floor. His tab for the two-night stay was $2,970.87.
In February 2009, Voll logged back-to-back stays at the W San Francisco and the St. Regis San Francisco. He spent four nights at the W and three nights – including Valentine’s Day – at the St. Regis.
Voll’s room bill at the W was $1,623.81 and included $433.14 in food and beverage charges. Receipts filed in the criminal case show that Voll and a companion dined on foie gras, duck, and sole, then topped off the meal with sorbet and cappuccino.
The bill at the St. Regis was $2,641.26. The nightly room rate, before tax, was $480. The charges also included a couple’s massage, at $390, and more than $50 a day in parking charges.
Voll’s travel records show a one-night stay at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco in March 2009, followed by the six-night stay at the InterContinental in April.
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“The database lists the actual expenditures on Voll’s trips at just over $250,000, which was more than 30 percent higher than any other employee.”
Looking at what those expenditures were, the fact that they were only 30% higher than that of others in the agency, is a bit disturbing. On the taxpayer dime, running the deficits we do, a Days Inn or a Motel 6 seems more in order. I’d also want to talk to whomever he was supposed tone meeting with on official Federal business in SF...and see what actually got accomplished.