Museum executives still mooching off 9/11 and laid off staffers

  

NY Post

After closing for six months during the pandemic and laying off or furloughing 60 percent of its staff, the cash-starved 9/11 Memorial and Museum gave $1,000 bonuses to each of its 12 highest paid execs, The Post has learned.

The bonus brought the total compensation in 2020 for CEO Alice Greenwald, who recently announced she is stepping down, to $564,500, according to the organization’s latest IRS filing.

Built to remember the September 11, 2001, terror attacks and to honor the 2,958 people murdered, the memorial and museum took a big financial hit during the pandemic and is still struggling to recover.

The bonuses were funded by an anonymous donor and restricted to that purpose, said spokeswoman Lee Cochran.

“The donation was intended to recognize the exceptional dedication of a very hard-working staff” who ran the organization after COVID-19 forced a shutdown in March 2020 and produced virtual education programs during the closure, Cochran said.

Besides Greenwald, 11 top staffers who each collected $187,000 to $347,000 in 2020 also got the $1,000 bonus. Another 155 remaining employees received unspecified bonuses “based on duration of employment.” Cochran said. She would not disclose the amounts or total spent on bonuses. “Everyone got something.”

The salaries anger an advocacy group, 9/11 Parents & Families of Firefighters and World Trade Center Victims, which wants the National Park Service to run the site.

“This is a cash cow for the executives running the museum. Their salaries are exorbitant,” said retired FDNY Deputy Chief Jim Riches, the group’s chairman, whose firefighter son Jimmy Riches was killed on 9/11.

Library audit very revealing

From The Forum:

With the audit and investigative report he released on Wednesday, City Comptroller Scott Stringer has painted a vivid picture of a disingenuous and reckless Queens Library under ousted President and CEO Thomas Galante.

Galante and other Library executives spent more than $300,000 on prohibited items such as extravagant meals, alcohol, Apple TVs, smokeless ashtrays, airline upgrades, and tickets to a Maroon 5 concert and Disneyland, all while claiming that the Library was running a deficit, according to the audit and report.

The results of the investigation have been referred to the Internal Revenue Service and law enforcement authorities.

During Galante’s tenure, the Library charged nearly all of its operating expenses to its internal “City Fund” account, which was subject to oversight by the comptroller’s office. As a result, Stringer said, from Fiscal Year 2008 to FY 2013 the Library appeared to run deficits that ranged from $5.7 million to $6.9 million, enabling Galante to go before the City Council and plead for more funds.

In reality, the Library had anywhere from $17 to $27 million in unrestricted funds in its fines and fees, state and board designated funds over the same period. Stringer said that Library executives could have drawn upon these so-called hidden funds. Instead, they used the money in part to pay for a wide range of inappropriate expenses.

At the same time they were improperly spending public funds, the Library was eliminating services to the reading public, cutting branch operating hours by an average of four hours per week. During that same time period, Library executives’ salaries increased, with compensation growing by nearly 7 percent—even as they cut services staff and their salaries by 2.8 percent.

Additionally, the audit and investigative report found that from July 2007 to December 2013, Galante made $670,000 in credit card charges that were never approved by the Library’s Board or Chief Financial Officer. And from FY 2012-2014, Galante and then-Chief Operating Officer Bridget Quinn-Carey incurred more than $310,000 in expenses that violated the Library’s Credit Card, Travel, and/or Purchasing Policy (roughly $260,000 of which were incurred by Galante.)

SS numbers used fraudulently, illegals getting tax breaks

From NPR:

More than 4,000 people availed of the government's employment-verification system using Social Security numbers belonging to people over the age of 112. Trouble is fewer than 40 people are known to have reached that age. That's one of the revelations from a review by the watchdog for the Social Security Administration.

The review also said there were approximately 6.5 million Social Security numbers linked to people 112 years of age or older. The reason, the review said: "SSA did not have controls in place to annotate death information on the ... records of numberholders who exceeded maximum reasonable life expectancies and were likely deceased."

According to the most recent data, there were fewer than 40 people worldwide who were living at 112 years, according to the Gerontology Research Group.

The review noted that in one case a man opened bank accounts using several different Social Security numbers — two of which belonged to number-holders born in 1869 and 1893, respectively. That would make one of them 145 years old and the other 121. The Social Security Administration's system indicated that both number-holders were alive.

From Forbes:

Whatever one thinks of the President Obama’s aggressive executive action on immigration—which is still being litigated in the courts—tax refunds for the affected illegal immigrants has itself become controversial. The IRS says that illegals can file and claim refunds for the last three years under the Earned Income Tax Credit. That is the same refundable tax credit that is responsible for billions in fraudulent refunds. IRS Commissioner Koskinen confirmed this, explaining the seemingly bizarre result to Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa).

What if you never reported any income or never filed a return? Under President Obama’s executive action, an illegal immigrant can: (1) get a Social Security number; (2) claim the Earned Income Tax Credit for the three open tax years; and (3) IRS sends three years of tax refunds. No matter that you never paid taxes, never filed a return, worked off the books, etc.

The IRS says this is the way the Earned Income Tax Credit works. IRS Commissioner Koskinen says the IRS is following a 15-year-old opinion that “a taxpayer may claim the Earned Income Tax Credit for a taxable year using a Social Security number acquired in a later taxable year.” Calling the three year tax refund perk a mockery of the law, Senator Grassley noted that illegals would be able to claim billions of dollars in tax benefits.

Sen. Grassley vowed legislation to overturn the IRS position. “The tax code shouldn’t reward those who broke our immigration laws,” he said. So far, the President hasn’t backed down, so U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry has introduced a bill to keep undocumented workers from receiving the Earned Income Tax Credit, a benefit for low- to moderate-income taxpayers.

“My bill is a direct result of the (IRS) announcement,” said McHenry, a Republican who represents the 10th District, which includes Gaston County. “It’s very simple. If you’re not here legally, you should not be able to access the Earned Income Credit. It’s for the American taxpayers who are trying to make ends meet.”

Illegals in the U.S. covered by President Obama’s recent action can apply for tax breaks going back three years. Rep. McHenry thinks there is a great chance for fraudulent returns, noting that even if undocumented workers were employed in the past, many may have used Social Security numbers that didn’t belong to them. That in itself is fraud.

[A video is embedded up top, but if you can't see it, you can view it here.]

Did Chuck try to use the IRS to silence opponents?

From the NY Post:

Did Chuck Schumer try to use the IRS to sidestep the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling — and stick a dagger in the heart of conservative groups?

That’s the gist of a complaint filed this week with the Senate Select Committee on Ethics.

In Citizens United, the court held that bans on independent political expenditures by corporations, associations and labor unions are bans on speech.

The Center for Competitive Politics is asking that Schumer and nine other Democratic senators be investigated for trying to use the IRS to suppress the free speech of political opponents.

The complaint notes Schumer signed letters asking the IRS if it was investigating “social welfare organizations” to see if they were improperly campaigning.

Turns out the IRS did investigate. And — surprise! — almost all the groups singled out for special IRS scrutiny were conservative.

Why did Vallone, Sr. vouch for this guy?

From the NY Post:

A playboy used-car dealer who looted his Queens employer out of millions to fund a filthy rich lifestyle was smacked with a seven-year prison term in Central Islip federal court Wednesday.

Luxury-loving Chris Orsaris spent his cash on everything from a Trump World Tower apartment to a mansion in Southampton. He has already served nearly four years of the sentence after his 2010 arrest and faces an additional three behind bars.

Orsaris – who fashioned himself as an opulent thug and surrounded himself with flashy hoodlums – inflated commission paperwork from the Major World Automotive dealers while he served as a general manager there, papers state.

Showing boundless greed, the 41-year-old fraudster once bought an $860,000 boat called “B Low Me” – and later claimed that it was stolen so he could collect on an insurance claim.

Court papers further reveal that Orsaris plunked down wads of cash to pay for a $5.5 million Trump World Tower apartment, a $3 million Hamptons home, and a $2 million Miami condo.

Judge Leonard Wexler ordered Orsaris to forfeit those prized properties – and to fork over $13.8 million to his former employer.

In addition, Orsaris owes $2.7 million in back taxes to the IRS and another $500,000 to an insurance company for the bogus boat claim.

Orsaris’ high powered attorneys from the firm of Benjamin Brafman unsuccessfully argued that he be given time served for his crimes. “He has done things wrong, he has admitted to them, and he has done his best to make this situation right,” they wrote in a court filing.

Orsaris even had former City Council Speaker Peter Vallone – a former Major World client – write a letter to the court to vouch for his character.

“He had an excellent reputation in my community and attended meetings of various civic and charitable groups where I was present and was always helpful and courteous,” Vallone wrote in March.

Couple renting out rent stabilized apartment as hotel

From WPIX:

When something intended to be helpful ends up being overused or abused, it’s called adverse selection in professional parlance. The way in which a couple has used New York City’s rent stabilization program gives adverse selection a whole new meaning, according to their landlord, and that meaning is unbelievably negative. The couple is accused of using their rent stabilized apartment as a hotel room or bed and breakfast, and reaping six-figure, untaxed profits as a result.

“I think this is for her a business,” said Ken Podziba, referring to his tenant, Amy Parness. Podziba, along with his sister, Susan, own 250 Elizabeth Street, an eight-apartment rental building. It’s nestled among designer boutiques where shopping is by appointment only, and very hip cafes and restaurants in one of the city’s hottest neighborhoods. It’s an ideal location for a widely sought-after bed and breakfast.

The problem is, according to Podziba, Parness has been running the b-and-b out of his apartment, which she’s supposed to be renting at a rate intended to promote affordable housing. ”And she’s not paying the IRS,” Podziba told PIX11 News, “so she’s profiting 100 percent.”

For the last 12 years, Podziba said, Parness has rented an apartment on the third floor of his building. For at least the last four years of that period, she has listed the apartment as the NoLita Nest on airbanb and other bed and breakfast listing websites.

Online, the apartment is displayed as a home away from home for tourists, who pay anywhere from $220 to $260 or more per night for the one bedroom, one bath railroad apartment.

The landlords were able to confirm their suspicions about their tenant’s activities when they learned that Parness was having unlicensed contracting work done to the apartment. A climb up the stairs to the floor where she’s renting reveals a notable absence on one of the walls. Where an entry doorway had been for over a century, there is now only a wall, and at the other end of the third floor landing, where there had once been only a wall, there’s now a deep green wooden door. The door contrasts sharply with all of the black, metal fire code-compliant doors in the five-storey walkup.

PIX11 News knocked on the green, wooden door, and a woman answered, without opening. Her description of herself was consistent with that provided by Podziba. Her boyfriend is renting the apartment for the summer, she said.

They’re paying $4000 per month, according to the landlord. Parness is renting from him for $1400 per month. So when the apartment is not being used as a bed and breakfast apartment, Parness is renting it out at a nearly 300 percent profit.

Does a Jamaica church owe property taxes?

From the NY Post:

The city is investigating how a Greek Orthodox church in Queens has avoided paying at least eight years’ worth of property taxes on a discount store it owns.

“We are investigating the case to determine what our options are,” Department of Finance spokesman Owen Stone said.

One city official said the back taxes would likely add up to several hundred-thousand dollars.

St. Demetrios Church, at 84-35 152nd St. in Jamaica, is also operating its Parsons Discount Store two blocks away without a Certificate of Occupancy, according to city records — a violation the Department of Buildings plans to review this week.

Records show the 85-year-old church has owned the store since 2004, but has never paid a dime to the city because it claimed the shop was a nonprofit, which would exempt it from property taxes. The city maintains the store is a profit-making business.

The Department of Finance started sending tax bills only earlier this year, after launching a citywide investigation into nonprofits scamming the city.

At that time, the church did not renew its nonprofit status for the store and was quickly issued a $19,202.81 bill, which is now past due.

One longtime member of the parish said investigators from both the Queens District Attorney’s Office and the IRS visited his home recently to ask questions about church finances. The DA declined comment and the IRS did not return calls for comment.

Taxpayer ID numbers used for fraud

From Fox News:

A recently released report shows widespread tax fraud in connection with the federal government’s Individual Taxpayer Identification Number program.

The U.S. Treasury inspector general report accuses the IRS of discouraging employees from reviewing applications for the ID numbers, which are generally from non-resident workers.

The inspector general specifically said there were 154 mailing addresses that were used 1,000 or more times on applications, including 15,795 numbers assigned to a Phoenix address.

The report, which evaluated the processing year 2011, also found inadequate controls can result in the numbers being assigned to people who have not proved their identity or foreign status, which can result in fraudulent tax returns.

The inspector general also found 10 individual addresses were used for filing 53,994 tax returns and receiving $86.4 million in fraudulent tax refunds. For example, 23,994 tax refunds totaling $46.3 million were issued to an address in Atlanta; and 2,507 tax refunds totaling $10.4 million were issued to an address in Oxnard, Calif.

In addition, the Treasury’s Inspector General for Tax Administration reports found 10 bank accounts received 23,560 tax refunds totaling more than $16 million -- including: 2,706 tax refunds issued to a single account totaling $7.3 million.

Double standard for real estate lobbying group

From Willets Point United:

We have been tracking the lackluster efforts of law enforcement in bringing the illegal lobbying work of Claire Shulman's Flushing/Willets Point/Corona Local Development Corporation to some sort of just enforcement conclusion. We have harped on the fact the NYS Attorney General's Office has completely tanked its original investigation of the illegal lobbying (under Section 1411 of the not for profit laws of NY), but haven't dwelled too much on our complaint to the IRS-something that we had written to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell about.

Now, however, a disturbing story prompts us to re-visit the federal aspects of Shulman's illegal lobbying scheming-the fact that the IRS is hounding Tea Party groups, forcing them through hoops to qualify for their not for profit status. The Daily Caller has the story-via Instapundit:

"During a 2009 commencement address at Arizona State University, President Obama joked that he’d send the IRS after those who didn’t see eye-to-eye with him. For over 100 tea party groups, his comments are not amusing; they are a reality. The tea party has had a profound impact on the national political debate, bringing the size and scope of the federal government to the forefront of the American dialogue. As voters increasingly connect with the tea party’s values, President Obama and Democrats have grown concerned about the movement’s grassroots energy. In a “Chicago style” attempt to smother the movement before the 2012 election, the Obama administration is using the IRS to attack tea party groups."

Check out what one Tea party group is being forced to do:

"The Waco Tea Party submitted an application for tax-exempt status in 2010. Nearly two years after the IRS’s 90-day response window elapsed, the group finally received a reply — a list of over 50 demands. The three-year-old organization was asked to compile every Facebook post and tweet it had ever produced. It was told to submit transcriptions of its weekly radio show — a request that would cost $25,000 to comply with, more than twice the group’s annual budget. It was ordered to explain any “close relationships” with candidates. And when the Waco Tea Party asked the IRS to clarify “close relationship” and “candidate,” the IRS replied, “Send us everything.”

Well, well, compare that with the Shulman application. As we said to Senator McConnell:

"The reason for this letter, however, is your publicly expressed concerns about the politicization of the IRS concerning the not for profit status of various tea party groups. We at WPU share your concerns because we have seen firsthand how the IRS has ignored our own complaints about the FWPCLDC-a group made up of real estate developers with no charitable objective.

As the group’s director Claire Shulman told the NY Times in 2009 lobbying was the "primary purpose" of FWPCLDC and "the whole idea." However, when filling out the IRS forms under lobbying the group wrote, “No.” This was in spite of the fact that the Shulman-led lobbying effort in favor of the Willets Point development was extremely successful-leading to the passage of this eminent domain inspired project that has put our properties at extreme risk."

WPU made a formal complaint to the IRS about Shulman's group and have yet to hear from these politicized bureaucrats-even when they are handed a prima facie case of illegality right in their lap. So it's pretty clear that when it comes to the equal enforcement of the law the Obama administration believes that some groups are more equal than others-and property rights be damned!

Council still willing to dish pork out to shady charities

From the Daily News:

The City Council tried to shell out nearly $100,000 in pork-barrel items this year to shady groups that city investigators had flagged or the IRS had slapped down, documents show.

Six new groups that have lost their earmark funding — including the Mount Hope Housing Co., a Bronx advocacy organization — are the latest losers since the budget was passed this summer. Nearly $1 million in earmarks to small community organizations and charities has been eliminated.

Critics say the funding pullbacks show that safeguards enacted following the Council’s slush-fund scandal in 2008 have not stopped lawmakers from trying to funnel money to questionable neighborhood-based groups.

Mount Hope, for example, has been under review by the city’s Department of Investigation since April 2009, records show.

A note attached to the charity’s city file states: “Investigation is ongoing and have no summary of funding to date.”

Despite that warning, the Council still sent $70,000 in pork to the charity in the Fiscal Year 2011 budget.

Liu's fundraiser a tax deadbeat

From the NY Post:

City Comptroller John Liu’s top political adviser is an accused tax deadbeat.

Chung Seto, Liu’s longtime campaign manager, owes the federal government up to $175,000 in back taxes, The Post has learned.

The IRS slapped Seto with two separate tax liens, for $100,871 for the 2007 tax year and $74,206 for 2008.

The liens — issued in August and June of this year — claim that Seto’s liability centers on underpaying personal income taxes.

“This is a personal tax matter that is being worked out with the IRS,” said Liu’s campaign spokesman, George Arzt.

Liu has paid Seto a total of $304,000 through his campaign accounts since 2006, records show.

The IRS scrutiny is just the latest concern for Liu’s political operation.

Liu tried to pull a fast one

From the NY Post:

Comptroller John Liu’s plan to turn a Chinatown holiday bash into a campaign fund-raiser has been nixed over legal questions.

The scandal-snared Liu, whose aggressive fund- raising has been under scrutiny for months, had planned to solicit donations at the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association’s annual holiday party.

But after The Post reported last week that the party could violate campaign-finance as well as IRS nonprofit regulations, he changed his mind.

Jack Eng, president of the 130-year-old CCBA, said it had been unaware of the regulations when it agreed to allow Liu to set up a table to collect contributions.
“Now we understand we can’t do it,” Eng said.

The federal tax code prohibits tax-exempt groups from advocating for political candidates or making their facilities available without charging a fair market price.

Liu’s campaign was not going to be charged a fee for the table.

Former Council President indicted

From the NY Times:

Andrew J. Stein, a former City Council president, assemblyman and Manhattan borough president who left politics in 1994, has been arrested along with a Manhattan financial adviser who has celebrity clients. Court documents said the financial adviser, Kenneth I. Starr, was charged with a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme.

Mr. Stein was charged with making false statements to the Internal Revenue Service. Court documents say he used about $1.6 million from a company created through Mr. Starr to cover “extravagant personal expenses,” including hundreds of thousands of dollars in credit card bills.

When I saw the headline stating that an ex-borough president had been indicted, I was really hoping it was Claire.

Oh well...

BRING IN THE FEDS.

More than 2 dozen arrested for cheating Uncle Sam

From 1010WINS:

A record number of tax preparers were charged Thursday with filing 35,000 suspected fraudulent returns that cost the government tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue, a prosecutor announced as he warned against cheating on taxes.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said "Operation Brass Tax" was designed to be large to add punch to his message for people to pay their taxes. The filing deadline is April 15.

The 26 tax preparers in Manhattan, the Bronx and New Jersey were charged with submitting tax returns with more than $95 million in deductions, most of which were believed to be fraudulent. The Internal Revenue Service had agents pose as customers as part of the crackdown.

Bharara said some of the tax preparers made millions through the fraud, sometimes by submitting returns in the names of dead people or by charging customers to create fake dependents for them.

Lucky Leo makes living off OTB tickets

From Fox 5:

Without placing a single bet, a man in New York City has made a decent living on off-track-betting. Jesus Leonardo collects discarded betting slips (many of them) and finds winners that others have tossed, according to The New York Times.

"It is literally found money," he said to the paper. Leonardo spends more than 10 hours a day feeding the found slips through a ticket scanner. He said he has been doing this for the last 10 years and figures that he has won about half a million dollars on thoroughbred races across the country.

Off-track betting, or OTB, refers to sanctioned gambling on horse racing outside a race track.

Leonardo is a "stooper" -- a person who hangs around racetracks and betting parlors picking up tickets thrown away by others. Stoopers have been part of racing since the 1930s; they are tolerated as long as they do not harass customers.

He collects thousands of tickets each day. He even hired two others to collects tickets at other betting parlors. He takes the trash home and organizes the tickets into stacks of 300, then returns the next day and feeds them through the ticket scanner. The work is intense enough that he takes a lunch break.

According to The Times, Leonardo, who has a wife and two teenage boys, fell into his career in 1999 after tossing a $900 winning ticket and then frantically searching for it. He collected tossed tickets, but never found his winner, instead he found two other winners worth $2000. He has been doing it ever since.

His winnings are all filed with the IRS.

Please come over here next!

From NBC 4:

The mayors of Hoboken and Secaucus were among 30 people arrested in early morning raids across New Jersey this morning as federal officials unveiled a long-ranging probe into public corruption and international money laundering, officials said

FBI and IRS rounded up scores of elected officials and several rabbis across the state in what is being described as one of the biggest investigations of its kind in Jersey's scandal-plagued history.

It appears to be a corruption-related investigation but Justice Department and FBI spokesmen would only say the corruption involved a "high-volume international money-laundering conspiracy.

Among those arrested this morning were Jersey City Deputy Mayor Leona Beldini, Hoboken Mayor Peter Cammarano and Secaucus Mayor Dennis Elwell, authorities said. Several area rabbis and other community leaders and politicians, including Jersey City Council President Mariano Vega, were brought into custody in connection with this case, officials said.