NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, April 9, 2014, 2:30 AM
Three officials at city job centers stole cases from other centers to inflate their own stats, a judge has found.
The employees fraudulently transferred hundreds of cases to their own centers as soon as welfare clients found a job – so they could claim credit for job placements they had nothing to do with, the ruling said.
The judge called for Stephen Spezzaferro, director of the East End Job Placement Center in Manhattan, his deputy Iris Wise and Adrian Williams, director of the Rider Job Placement Center in the Bronx, to be fired.
“The dishonesty and deceit demonstrated by respondents’ actions here clearly demands a severe penalty,” wrote judge John Spooner, calling it “an egregious violation of the trust placed in them as managers, as well as their fundamental responsibility as civil servants.”
The officials illegally snatched at least 1,800 cases for their own centers by meddling with electronic records in a scheme that stretched over three years. They shredded transfer documents to cover up the fraud, the ruling found.
Both centers improved their stats on job placements as a result, with the East End center ranking first in the city in 2011.
The workers, all 25-year veterans, fessed up to the scheme, but claimed they were under too much pressure from supervisors to improve their stats.
A spokesperson for the Human Resources Administration, which runs the centers, did not return a call for comment. The three employees could not be reached for comment.
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