Posted on 04/18/2023 8:05:46 AM PDT by John W
Dozens of Cook County employees have resigned or been fired in ongoing investigations of fraud in COVID-19 relief programs.
Forty-eight employees of Cook County Clerk of Court Iris Martinez “no longer work” for the office after they were found to have defrauded the federal Paycheck Protection Program, which was enacted to provide forgivable loans to help struggling businesses stay in business in 2020 and 2021 during the first two years of the coronavirus pandemic.
Nationally, most of the loans in the federal Small Business Administration’s fraud-plagued program were forgiven, meaning the businesses’ owners didn’t have to pay back any of the PPP money they got.
Martinez said Friday that she understands the need for public trust in her office and that “I am personally offended that individuals in my office that took advantage of the PPP loan program. I cannot stand by any employee who provided false or altered information to these banking institutions for their own personal gain at the expense of taxpayers. These individuals undermined a government program designed to save American businesses.”
The written statement from Martinez’s office didn’t say how many of the employees who’ve left her office were fired or how many resigned.
Also Friday, interim Cook County Inspector General Steven Cyranoski released a quarterly report in which he said he found six employees of other county agencies had defrauded federal relief programs, too.
One employee of the Cook County Board of Review and one in Cook County Assessor Fritz Kaegi’s office have been fired this year, the report said. Three county employees — in facilities management, the public defender’s office and the Cook County Board’s secretary to the board office — have resigned this year. Disciplinary action is pending in a sixth case, involving a county comptroller’s office employee, the report said.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicago.suntimes.com ...
The name of the county will have to be changed from Cook county to Crook county.
Replacing lightfoot’s cronies with the next set if hacks.
No news here …
Cook County? No surprise. I expected many more to have defrauded the Feds. For those that resigned, were their pensions, if eligible, taken away? Not likely. For those fired, who knows. They’ll get picked up by another democrat controlled office in that festering infected wound called Chicago. Yep, Crook County is a better moniker. Going on the fifth generation of democrat control and inherited corruption. Way to go, Chicago. As the toilet water gurgles and the city swirls down the bowl...
Crooked Cook County employees? Hold on a sec, let me find my shocked face.
Being Crook County, I’d wager those people who got fired were too stupid to understand they have to pay 10% to the Big County Guy.
Cook County, Illinois was incorporated in 1831. In 1832, the local newspapers started calling it “Crook County.”
!!
Truth be known, pretty damn near 100% of Cook County/Chicago government are grifters on the take one way or another.
Corruption in old Chicago. Who knew?
The PPP was one big fraud.
It was a way to award government crony companies to make money during the scamdemic. The little people who were hurt financially or the Mom & Pop stores are the ones they are investigating though. Were these folks in Cook County right in doing what they did? No. But I can understand the temptation...especially working for the crooked government. They learned from example.
Only took a year, eh? I’m not surprised.
I made that up...but would anybody be surprised if it only took a year?
What’s that big city in Crook County?
Oh yeah, it’s Chicongo.
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