6 women busted for housing scam

From the NY Times:

In a notoriously expensive city, people will do anything to get a break on housing costs. They might hide a relative, change their name or suggest they earn less than they really do.

But six women went too far and were arrested in a particularly imaginative scheme for seeking the government’s help with rent payments, officials said on Tuesday.

The women have been charged with submitting fraudulent documents — including forged police reports and court orders — to portray themselves as victims of domestic violence in an apparent attempt to jump to the front of a long waiting list for government subsidized apartments, said Rose Gill Hearn, the commissioner of the city’s Department of Investigation.

Since she took her position in 2002, Ms. Gill Hearn has seen hundreds of housing fraud cases a year “of different permutations,” she said. “But this is the first time that D.O.I. has investigated and uncovered individuals who are engaging in housing fraud by posing as victims of domestic violence.”