Agents Arrest 9 Accused of Disaster Fraud : Crackdowns: The suspects are rounded up in pre-dawn raids from the San Fernando Valley to Anaheim.

In a widely publicized effort to stem disaster aid fraud, federal agents on Thursday arrested nine people accused of collecting thousands of dollars by filing false claims after last year’s Northridge earthquake and January’s floods.

The suspects, who were taken into custody at their homes in pre-dawn raids from the San Fernando Valley to Anaheim, fraudulently collected more than $70,000 in grants from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, said Assistant U.S. Atty. Nathan Hochman.

Although that sum is but a fraction of the more than $1 billion in disaster aid disbursed since the earthquake, Hochman said federal officials hoped to deter fraud in a region rife with natural disasters.

Most of those arrested claimed to have been displaced from their homes by the quake or floods, circumstances that would have entitled them to federal grants of up to $15,600 to pay for temporary housing, property replacement and living expenses, Hochman said.

But investigators, acting on anonymous tips or discrepancies found in aid applications, discovered that most of the suspects either did not live at the addresses they listed on their applications, or claimed damage that never occurred, Hochman said.

Fraudulent claims “drain the pool of money available to legitimate victims,” Hochman said. “We’re hoping to send a very strong message that, like earthquake fraud, flood fraud won’t be tolerated.”

The suspects were arraigned in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles on a slew of felony counts of filing false claims to the federal government. If convicted, each faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each count, plus repayment of any money received, Hochman said.

The arrests, carried out by more than 30 agents from FEMA, the Small Business Administration, the U.S. Secret Service and the U.S. Postal Service, are part of what officials called a “first wave of flood fraud charges.” They follow other recent crackdowns on fraud related to federally declared disasters in Southern California, dating back to the 1992 Los Angeles riots.

Since a federal task force was established in March, 1994, to investigate disaster aid fraud, more than $16 million in improperly obtained disaster assistance has been voluntarily returned to FEMA, Hochman said. All told, about $70 million in FEMA aid has been disbursed to victims of last January’s floods, Hochman said, and about $1.2 billion has gone to quake victims.

Tuesday’s arrests included a Northridge woman, her sister and her two sons whose claims comprised more than half of the fraudulent aid targeted by this sweep. Rose Setzke, 60, collected more than $25,000 from FEMA after filing four applications under four different names that listed three residences and four Social Security numbers, Hochman said. An attorney appointed to represent Setzke declined to comment on the case.

One of Setzke’s sons, Parnell Dwyer, 32, received $6,400 from FEMA after claiming damage to a Granada Hills house he wasn’t living in at the time of the quake, Hochman said. FEMA aid is meant only for those displaced from their homes, and covers only property used as a primary residence at the time of a disaster.

Setzke’s other son, Dennis Dwyer, 30, was charged with receiving $4,860 from FEMA after claiming quake damage to his San Fernando home when he was actually living in Northridge at the time of the quake, Hochman said.

In one arrest in Anaheim, Janice Dissen, 31, was taken into custody at 5:30 a.m. while she was getting ready to go to work at a petroleum company in Los Angeles, said her husband, Bryan Dissen. He said his wife was wearing a sweat shirt and sweat pants, and was crying as she was led away from their house on Jacalene Lane by agents.

Dissen was charged with collecting $3,300 from FEMA even though her apartment was undamaged in January’s floods, officials said. But her husband said she “did nothing wrong,” and that he didn’t understand why she was arrested.

Dissen, 32, said he and his wife had been separated, and that she was living in an apartment last winter. She was preparing to move to a unit downstairs, however, and had already placed much of her furniture there when the floods came. The money she received from FEMA was used to replace furniture damaged in the floods, he said.

*

“A lot of the apartment residents got help because of her,” Bryan Dissen said. “She was the one who kept calling FEMA and the Red Cross. She kept bugging them for two weeks until they finally came out and told her exactly what to do to get help.”

He added that in March, his wife moved back into their house, where they live with their three daughters, ages 2, 5 and 7.

Others arrested Thursday included Lujeena Ennis, 30, of Los Angeles; her sister Nycole Ennis, 29, of Los Angeles; Sharon Van Ert, 37, of Torrance; Connie Lewis, 47, of Upland, and Connie Flores, 56, of Wilmington. Officials said all of those arrested were expected to be released on bail.

Flores, who is Rose Setzke’s sister, was charged with claiming the quake damaged her primary residence in San Fernando when she was actually living in Wilmington. Similarly, Lewis is accused of collecting $3,050 by falsely claiming to have lived in the Northridge Meadows Apartments--where 16 people were killed in the earthquake--when she was really living in Rialto at the time.

Also on Thursday, arrest warrants were issued for Barbara Price, 54, of Lexington, N.C.; Lillian Hargrave, 51, of Chowchilla, and Alexis Duplantier, 41, of Diamond Bar. In all, the 13 people named in charges disclosed Thursday received nearly $100,000 in FEMA aid, Hochman said. Another fraud suspect, Joseph Aleks, 44, of Santa Barbara, was arrested two weeks ago for allegedly filing a false application for an SBA loan, officials said.

Mimi Ko, a Times correspondent in Orange County, contributed to this story.