De Blasio administration will pay more than $5 million after scamming FEMA with fake Superstorm Sandy claims
by Anna Giaritelli
February 21, 2019 02:00 PM New York City will reimburse the federal government more than $5 million for its attempt to scam the Federal Emergency Management Agency with bogus claims it submitted after Superstorm Sandy hit the city in 2012, according to a settlement filed in Manhattan federal court Wednesday.
U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman in Manhattan said the incident took money FEMA should have been able to give to "legitimate disaster victims in desperate need." Instead, city officials in Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio's administration attempted to claim millions of dollars the city was ineligible to receive.
The city told FEMA in May 2014 that it lost 132 Department of Transportation vehicles as a result of the storm and asked to be reimbursed $4.13 million by the Department of Homeland Security for replacements. But the federal government learned that many of the passenger, commercial, and heavy equipment vehicles had been damaged or deemed inoperable before Sandy struck New York.
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/de-blasio-administration-will-pay-more-than-5-million-after-scamming-fema-with-fake-superstorm-sandy-claims
