Welfare Prober Claims Fraud Unabated : Government: Investigator says corruption in county system continues and officials are covering up the issue.

Welfare fraud whistle-blower David Sossaman said Wednesday that a “high level of corruption” still exists within the San Diego County welfare system and that local officials appear more interested in “trying to keep public opinion down, because it’s such a volatile issue.”

Sossaman, a welfare-fraud investigator currently on leave without pay, appeared before the County Board of Supervisors and reiterated many of the same allegations he has raised for months, to the San Diego County Grand Jury and the media, among others.

Sossaman, the apparent focal point of a welfare-fraud expose airing on ABC’s “Prime Time Live” Thursday night, was given only a few minutes before the board, which Tuesday heard one of its own officials counter the reports of fraud and corruption.

Cecil H. Steppe, interim director of the Department of Social Services, told the board he had found no evidence of fraud or missing welfare-case files, which Sossaman and others say contain evidence of widespread corruption and as much as $70 million in lost revenue.

To try to resolve the controversy, Supervisor and San Diego mayoral candidate Susan Golding has written to Eloise Anderson, director of the state Department of Social Services, requesting a state audit of the county’s welfare operations.

“I feel strongly that we need to insure the public that their tax dollar is being spent properly,” Golding wrote in the letter. “The public needs assurance that this situation is being taken seriously.”

Sossaman said he had been supported by Supervisors Golding and Brian Bilbray but that other officials “are just trying to keep the status quo. The last grand jury made clear that the (Department of Social Services) is covering this up to play down a negative public backlash.”

Sossaman said he was skeptical of the role Steppe, a career probation officer, has played since coming to the department last spring, in that “he’s saying to the press, ‘No files are missing,’ when, in fact, the problem is much, much deeper than he says it is.

“The current situation is as bad as it ever was before. Absolutely nothing has changed. Workers are still being intimidated (by supervisors). They’re being told, ‘Fraud is not your business. Don’t worry about it.’ Fortunately, these people are at least going to the grand jury.”

Steppe could not be reached for comment on Wednesday but told the board Tuesday, “I have found no corruption. We are not hiding anything, for there is nothing to hide.”

He said a recent investigation targeted 20 people, including five former welfare department employees who were each sentenced to prison--one for seven years. Steppe said one other employee was recently arrested for having allegedly seized $17,000 in a welfare-fraud scheme.