5400 Federal Plaza, Suite 1500 Hammond, IN 46320
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Mary L. Hatton September 20, 2007 PHONE: (219) 937-5603 www.usdoj.gov/usao/inn Fax: (219) 852-2770
Hammond, IN—The United States Attorney’s Office announced today the return of a mail fraud indictment against former Calumet Township Trustee, Dozier T. Allen, Jr., and three of his senior employees at the trustee’s office, Wanda Joshua, Ann Marie Karras, and Albert Young, Jr.
Allen, 75, of Gary, Indiana, served as the Calumet Township Trustee through 2002. Joshua, 59, of Gary, was the Calumet Township Deputy Trustee. Karras, 65, of Gary, was the Deputy Trustee of Finance. Young, 59, of Vicksburg, Mississippi, was the appointed Deputy Trustee of Job Search. Allen was defeated in the May 2002 primary election and he and the other defendants all left the trustee’s office on December 31, 2002.
The indictment alleges that the defendants engaged in a scheme to defraud Calumet Township and its citizens of money and the intangible right of honest services from January 2000 through December 2002.
In February 2000, the Trustee’s Office entered into a contract with Workforce Development Services, a division of Ivy Tech State College. The funding for this contract was through the United States Department of Labor’s “Welfare - to - Work” initiative. The contract required the trustee’s office to submit certain data and the trustee’s office was authorized to receive payments for documented expenses in connection with compiling that data.
The Trustee’s Office received over $170,000 pursuant to this contract. All of the payments received from Ivy Tech were deposited into a checking account controlled by Dozier Allen. Of the total amount deposited, the defendants paid themselves $143,000. No payments other than those to the four defendants were ever made from this checking account. The only expenses from this account were some nominal bank charges.
The first money was received under this contract in November 2000. The indictment alleges that from December 2000 through December 2002, Joshua received checks totaling $51,000, Karras received $38,000 and Young received $26,000. Allen received his first check for $12,000, allegedly for retroactive services, on June 3, 2002, shortly after he was defeated for re-election. Allen received a total of $28,000. These figures for all defendants include what was termed a “year end” fee taken shortly before leaving office in late December 2002. No such “year end” fees were taken for 2000 or 2001.
The indictment also alleges that the under Indiana law, the Calumet Township Advisory Board was required to fix the salaries of each of the defendants. The indictment alleges that the payments to the defendants from the moneys received by the Trustee’s Office from Ivy Tech were in addition to their salaries as approved by the Advisory Board.
The indictment further alleges that the defendants engaged in acts to conceal and deceive, and failed to disclose to the Advisory Board and others the existence of the contract between Ivy Tech and the Trustee’s Office, the defendant’s pecuniary interest in the contract, and the payments that the defendants received.
As public servants, the defendants owed a duty of honest services to the citizens of Calumet Township. This duty of honest services required that the defendants act in best interests of Calumet Township and its citizens free from conflicts of interest. Indiana law prohibits a public servant from profiting from a contract connected with an action by the governmental entity served by the public servant.
Each defendant is charged with two counts of mail fraud.
This indictment is a result of the Operation Restore Public Integrity initiative. Agencies involved in this investigation were the Department of Labor and the Internal Revenue Service.
Gordon S. Heddell, Inspector General, United States Department of Labor, stated: “The alleged use of welfare-to-work grant funds for personal gain represents an egregious betrayal of the U.S. taxpayer, and of those hopeful individuals for whose benefit the money had been intended. The charges announced today highlight my office's determination to work with other law enforcement agencies to safeguard Department of Labor funds.”
This matter is assigned to and will be prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Thomas L. Kirsch II.
The specific sentence to be imposed upon conviction in each case will be determined by the judge after a consideration of federal sentencing statutes and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.
The United States Attorney’s Office emphasized that an indictment is merely an allegation and that all persons charged are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty in court.
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