Tips on Fraud Hot Line Lead to the Disciplining of 25 County Workers

Twenty-five Los Angeles County employees--including a group who filed bogus claims for emergency food stamps after the Northridge quake--were disciplined during the past three months as a result of anonymous tips on the county’s employee fraud hot line, officials said Monday.

The accounting, in a quarterly report from the county auditor-controller’s office, reflected an especially busy month for the five-year-old “tattler” hot line, according to assistant auditor controller Mike Galindo.

“Usually the cases just involve things like time abuse--somebody taking a three-hour lunch, or leaving early on a continual basis,” Galindo said. “But this quarter, we had some more serious things, in part because of the (Jan. 17) disaster.”

Galindo said that during the three-month period, the auditor-controller’s office substantiated 29 allegations from among 107 hot-line tips. The investigations prompted the firings of 12 county employees and the resignations or suspensions of 13 others, he said.

Among them:

* The firing or resignations of nine Department of Public Social Services employees who filed false Federal Emergency Management Agency claims for emergency food stamps after the January earthquake.

* The firing of an unidentified county employee for making $6,000 worth of telephone calls to Bolivia from a county phone. Galindo said the man, who faces possible criminal charges, had worked for the county treasurer’s office and the Department of Children’s Services, and was caught in a routine telephone bill audit after officials noticed an inordinate number of international calls being placed on Saturdays.

* The firing of a library employee who confessed to stealing nearly $16,000 worth of videotapes and other taxpayer-owned items.

* The cancellation of contract duties for a privately contracted employee in the Department of Parks and Recreation after he engaged in bestiality at a county equestrian center.

* The firing of two DPSS employees and resignation of a third for “engaging in inappropriate conduct with a client.”

The hot line, which is aimed at pinpointing and deterring wrongdoing by county employees, was set up at the request of Supervisor Mike Antonovich in 1989 after a county Fire Department accountant was charged with stealing $800,000.

Officials have said the line receives more than 800 tips a year.