| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE October 20, 2008 WWW.USDOJ.GOV/USAO/CAN |
San Francisco- United States Attorney Joseph P. Russoniello and Department of Justice Inspector General Glenn A. Fine announced today that the City and County of San Francisco (San Francisco) has agreed to repay the Department of Justice over $5.2 million for funds it improperly requested and received through the Department’s Southwest Border Prosecution Initiative (SWBPI). SWBPI is a program through which the Department provides reimbursement to four Southwest Border states and local jurisdictions for the prosecution and pre-trial detention costs in federally initiated cases that are declined by the U.S. Attorneys offices.
The Department awarded San Francisco SWPBI funding totaling over $5.7 million between fiscal years 2004 and 2006 based on submissions by San Francisco that it claimed were eligible for SWBPI reimbursement. For fiscal years 2005 and 2006, San Francisco contracted Brad Burgess of Public Resource Management Group, to administer San Francisco’s participation in the reimbursement program. On every SWBPI reimbursement application, San Francisco was required to certify that the SWBPI claim, combined with other federal funding, did not exceed 100 percent of the cost of prosecuting and detaining case defendants during the reporting period. However, a routine program audit conducted by the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) revealed that San Francisco had not maintained any documentation to support the costs submitted for reimbursement that were associated with SWBPI cases and that its SWBPI submissions were not based on specific cases. In response to concerns raised during the initial audit, San Francisco attempted to create a list of cases that it believed qualified for SWBPI reimbursement. The OIG auditors determined that the cases San Francisco identified during the initial audit were not eligible for reimbursement because they were not federally initiated as required by the SWBPI guidelines. The lack of documentation caused OIG and the US Attorney's Office to conduct a further investigation, which confirmed that all of the initial claims did not qualify for reimbursement.
To remedy the unallowable SWBPI reimbursements, in February 2008, San Francisco made an initial repayment of $2.7 million to the Department. Before further payments were made, the U.S. Attorney’s Office gave San Francisco the opportunity to go back and identify any eligible cases to support any remaining portion of the funds it received. An OIG follow-up audit released today determined that San Francisco was only able to provide supporting documentation for allowable SWBPI reimbursements totaling approximately $520,000. San Francisco agreed to make an additional repayment of over $2.5 million, bringing its total repayments to over $5.2 million.
The settlement was the result of a coordinated effort by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California, the OIG Investigations Division, and the OIG Audit Division.
Assistant United States Attorney Ila Deiss is handling the matter on behalf of the United States Attorney’s Office, together with Rebecca Quinson, Assistant Regional Audit Manager, Office of the Inspector General, Audit Division, and Angel Gordon, Senior Special Agent, Office of the Inspector General, Investigations Division.
Further Information:
Case# : TBA
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