2 Fired Amid Inquiry Into Quake Aid Fraud : Crime: Other county employees could also lose their jobs over food stamp abuses, investigators say. So far, 189 applications have been identified as questionable.

Two Los Angeles County welfare workers have been fired, five face possible termination and scores of others are under scrutiny in an investigation into food stamp fraud among county employees who processed earthquake relief applications, officials said Tuesday.

Investigators are searching for possible fraudulent claims among 1,026 applications for emergency food stamps submitted by employees of the county Department of Public Social Services, the agency responsible for administering more than $66.8 million in emergency food stamps after the Jan. 17 temblor.

Officials have identified 189 applications that raise some questions and require greater scrutiny, said Mary Robertson, county administrator of the food stamp program. The cases include those of two employees who were fired two weeks ago and five who have received discharge notices and face appeals hearings under civil service guidelines.

“It is very disappointing to see this happen, but it is naive to suspect it wouldn’t ever happen,” Robertson said.

County officials would not release details of the fraudulent applications, citing confidentiality of personnel matters and the possibility that the employees may face criminal prosecution or further administrative penalties under the county’s food stamp regulations, which require employees to reimburse the county for fraudulent claims.

A special team of fraud investigators has been established to consider criminal charges against the employees as well as other applicants who tried to obtain food stamp benefits illegally. Under state law, fraudulent claims of more than $400 are a felony and could bring a maximum penalty of three years in prison and a $5,000 fine. Fraud less than $400 carries a penalty of up to six months in jail and a $500 fine.

Robertson said each of the seven employees “intentionally gave false information” in hopes of obtaining food stamps, which the federal government made available on a one-time emergency basis to victims of the earthquake. Officials said earlier that the fraudulent claims involved caseworkers and other employees filing applications in their names or those of relatives or fictitious clients, or helping others obtain food stamps illegally.

Although county officials said they regard the abuse as serious, they said many welfare workers were hit hard financially by the quake and were entitled to emergency assistance. Investigators have reviewed about two-thirds of the welfare workers’ applications and have found 445 to be valid, officials said. Of the applications considered possibly fraudulent, officials said most involved claims of less than $600.

“It is important to keep in mind the majority of these were valid applications,” Robertson said. “I think morale-wise, our employees who behaved correctly need to understand that we will act quickly when there are improprieties going on.”

In a separate investigation, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which oversees the federally funded food stamp program, continues to look into allegations that about 10 county caseworkers tried to defraud the food stamp program during the rush for assistance after the earthquake.

Officials would not comment on the details of the allegations, but said all sprang from anonymous telephone tips to federal and county abuse hot lines. The investigation is being conducted independently of the county’s inquiry but may involve some of the same employees, they said.

“Our biggest concern is the people who have inside access to the system and can use their position to obtain something or give something to a friend or relative,” said Tim Danaher, assistant regional inspector general for the federal agency.

But Danaher said federal investigators have made little progress because of reams of paperwork from quake assistance applications that the county is still sorting through. The county, which received nearly 279,000 applications for emergency food stamps, has hired about 700 temporary clerks to help file applications and input data into computers.

“If you are intending to prosecute somebody for criminal wrongdoing, you need the original applications as evidence,” Danaher said. “Right now, when you go into a lot of (county welfare offices) and ask for an application, they point to a wall of boxes and say it is in there somewhere.”