D.A. Investigator Disciplined in Welfare Fraud Case

An investigator for the district attorney’s office has been disciplined for making what were called “unprofessional” comments to a welfare fraud investigator who said he was threatened by the district attorney investigator, it was learned Wednesday.

The incident was rooted in a dispute between district attorney investigator Jonas Pumphrey and David Sossaman, a county welfare fraud investigator who testified last fall before the grand jury about corruption in the Department of Social Services.

In his testimony, Sossaman told the grand jury about Pumphrey’s alleged role in covering up corruption by some welfare employees and recipients.

Pumphrey was the principal investigator in a case that resulted in 20 arrests in October, when five former welfare employees and 15 accomplices were charged with stealing about $1 million from the county. It was the biggest welfare fraud investigation in county history.

However, Sossaman alleged that Pumphrey and Department of Social Services investigators who worked the case failed to charge other welfare employees with wrongdoing.

Pumphrey appeared before the grand jury to answer Sossaman’s charges and later complained to Lee Loveall, Sossaman’s supervisor, that “I was raked over the coals by the grand jury,” according to Sossaman’s attorney.

During the meeting last fall with Loveall, Pumphrey objected to Sossaman’s grand jury testimony and told Loveall that “paybacks are a bitch,” which Sossaman interpreted as a threat by Pumphrey, Sossaman’s attorney said in a letter to Dist. Atty. Edwin Miller.

Sossaman’s attorney, Michael D. Curran, wrote a letter to Miller on Jan. 3 demanding an investigation of Pumphrey’s purported threats.

Miller ordered an internal affairs investigation that ended in late April.

In an April 29 letter to Sossaman’s attorney, Miller said the investigation revealed that Pumphrey did say “paybacks are a bitch,” adding that he was disciplined for his “unprofessional” remark. The letter also said the investigation “consumed a considerable amount of time and resources.”

However, Miller’s three-paragraph letter does not address Sossaman’s contention that Pumphrey’s comments amounted to a threat.

The disciplinary action taken against Pumphrey is also not addressed in the letter. Officials in the district attorney’s office did not return phone calls Wednesday. Previously, they had denied Sossaman’s allegations.

Although Miller acknowledged one of Sossaman’s allegations against Pumphrey, the district attorney said that all others, including allegations of covering up corruption, were found to be false. Sossaman had also charged that Pumphrey had “singled me out for payback” by beginning an illegal investigation of him.

According to Sossaman, after he testified to the grand jury about Pumphrey’s alleged wrongdoing, Pumphrey and state Employment Development Department investigator Joe Candelaria began an unauthorized investigation of his payment of state taxes.

Last December, Pumphrey and Candelaria went to three shopping malls where Sossaman worked part-time in 1990 as a security guard at Bailey, Banks & Biddle jewelry stores. At the time, district attorney officials said Candelaria was conducting an independent investigation of Sossaman and the stores’ other security guards.

They said Candelaria had requested that a district attorney investigator accompany him to the stores, where he asked to see Sossaman’s payroll records. District attorney officials denied that Pumphrey initiated the probe of Sossaman’s taxes and said it was a “coincidence” that he was assigned to accompany Candelaria.

When Sossaman learned of the probe, he volunteered his tax returns from 1990 to prove he had paid state and federal taxes on the $4,000 he earned from his part-time security job.

Sossaman said Wednesday that he was dissatisfied with Miller’s findings.

“He admitted that Pumphrey threatened to get me, but he denied that Pumphrey did anything wrong when he and Candelaria went looking for my tax records. They say it was only a coincidence that Pumphrey was assigned and a coincidence that the EDD investigation had anything to do with me. They’re lying, and I can prove it,” Sossaman said.

In a related matter, Deputy Dist. Atty. Robert Boles said Wednesday that Miller is studying a proposal to transfer authority over about 30 county welfare fraud investigators to the district attorney’s office. The proposal was made Monday by Cecil Steppe, acting social services director, in a meeting with Miller.