Another Immigration and Customs Enforcement official is in hot water over a kick-back scheme involving falsified travel reimbursements.
A total of seven ICE officials have been implicated in similar travel reimbursement scams since 2011.
Former ICE official Lateisha Rollerson is being charged with one count of conversion of public money, the latest in a series of cases involving ICE employees using federal dollars to pocket false travel expenses.
According the Center for Investigative Research, “Prosecutors are seeking a judgment of $295,866.”
During her tenure at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Rollerson created several companies that worked with the federal agency and received kickbacks. Records obtained by the Center for Investigative Research show that Rollerson arranged fake travel reimbursements for at least two co-workers, and had the co-workers write personal checks to her private companies.
One of the companies in question, Executive Security Forces, employed a former ICE agent who was fired in 2011. The employee, Chad Woosley, is the son of James Woosley, the former intelligence chief for ICE, who resigned last year amid allegations about widespread travel voucher fraud.
Rollerson allegedly used her government email address to conduct business for Executive Security Forces.
Her attorney has called Rollerson “a wonderful person caught up in an unfortunate situation,” but she is not the only ICE official involved in the travel voucher scam.
Three employees plead guilty to embezzlement charges last October. Records show that the three defendants stole more than $221,000, and three other ICE employees have been implicated.
Former intelligence analyst Ahmed Adil Abdallat plead guilty last October to stealing $70,ooo from a similar travel scheme. He also admitted to two counts of diplomatic passport misuse.
“Abdallat admitted that he submitted 13 travel vouchers between February 2009 and September 2010 and received $116,392.34 in reimbursements for lodging, car rentals and other expenses that included fraudulent receipts,” the Center for Investigative Research reported last October.
In addition to Executive Security Forces, Rollerson held the company Lifeskillz Support LLC, both to which Abdallat wrote personal checks, as well as Rollerson and Chad Woosley. On occasion, Abdallat even paid James Woosley’s mortgage. Earlier this year, he was sentenced to 366 days in prison and ordered to pay $116,392.84 in restitution.
Two former ICE workers, William Korn and Stephen Henderson, both have plead guilty. Henderson, who ran the scheme from July 2008 until October 2010, has a judgment out for $54,387.62.
Korn, on the other hand, agreed to forfeit $50,832.49. “His involvement began in October 2008, when he joined two other employees in agreeing to lease an Alexandria, Va., house. Korn paid rent and utilities for the house with reimbursements from fake hotel lodging claims until December 2009, when the intelligence research specialist told the assistant that he wouldn’t submit falsified vouchers anymore, records show,” CIR reported.
ICE now has a new intelligence management team. They added new employee training as well as implemented a “corrective action plan” to monitor internal review to inspect how the office handles travel, IT security, classified material, as well as other issues.
Neither James Woosley nor Chad Woosley have been arrested yet.
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