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VA employee sexted, misspent travel funds on taxpayer dime

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A failure to properly supervise a Department of Veteran’s Affairs employee led him to use VA resources for sexting, misuse official time, and inappropriately spend thousands of dollars in travel funds, according to a recent report.

In a redacted report — first highlighted by the Military Times — the Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Inspector General reveals a plethora of cringe-worthy offenses perpetrated by an unnamed VA employee.

Despite the employee’s bad behavior, his supervisors allowed him to continue his unauthorized activities and even promoted him.

The report names and recommends that the VA consider taking action against several VA employees who had some responsibility in allowing the unnamed employee to run wild. The supervisor bearing the brunt of the responsibility, Jonah Czerwinski, resigned in September.

“We substantiated that Mr. Jonah Czerwinski, former (resigned) Director of VACI and a Senior Advisor to VA’s Secretary, failed to properly discharge the duties of his position when he did not properly detail and supervise [redacted] formerly a GS-12 (b)(7)(C) Rating Veterans Service Representative (RVSR), Veterans Benefits Administration (VBA), Nashville, TN, which led to [redacted] misusing his official time, improperly teleworking, working ad hoc, traveling without authorization, and misusing his position and VA resources,” the report reads.

“We also found that [redacted] downloaded and installed unapproved software to his VA-issued laptop for the purpose of sexting — defined as the sending of sexually explicit photos, images, text messages, or emails using a mobile device,” it continues.

According to investigators, the unnamed employee moved without authorization from Nashville to Washington, D.C. where Czerwinski had officials create a higher position for him.

In addition to the unnamed employee’s misuse of nearly $31,000 in travel funds, the IG determined “that [redacted] absence from his Nashville [Rating Veterans Service Representative] duties while improperly detailed for a prolonged period of time resulted in an undetermined number of veterans’ claims not being reviewed, as required by his position of record. We recognize a need to, at times, detail VA employees; however, detailing employees must be properly documented and comply with VA policy.”

Genevieve Billia, a VA spokesperson, told TheDC that the department “takes any allegation regarding misuse of departmental resources very seriously, and the department appreciates the Office of Inspector General’s independent review.”

She added that the “VA reviewed the OIG’s report, and will determine appropriate actions to take with respect to its recommendations.”

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