Energy

EPA Silent On The Fate Of An Employee Arrested For Child Porn

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Michael Bastasch DCNF Managing Editor
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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is silent on the fate of an agency employee arrested on five counts of possessing child pornography.

“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is fully coordinating with the Office of Inspector General and law enforcement in the ongoing investigation into allegations of criminal activity by an employee at the Agency’s regional office in Chicago,” an EPA spokeswoman Melissa Harrison told The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“EPA has no further comment at this time,” she said.

Harrison did not respond to TheDCNF’s question on whether or not the employee in question could be fired after being charged with possessing child porn. EPA computer specialist Floyd Ohara was arrested Monday afternoon.

Naperville, Ill., police found Ohara had illegally downloaded child pornography. Police began looking into Ohara in February and worked with state prosecutors to get an arrest warrant for the federal worker.

A spokesman at EPA’s Chicago office told Patch.com Tuesday he was “looking into the status of Ohara’s employment and whether the agency was checking his work computers for child pornography.”

A judge set Ohara’s bail at $100,000, and he’s being held in county jail.

House Republicans lashed out at EPA on the news of the Region 5 employee’s arrest, saying it shows a “staggering” level of misconduct within the agency.

“Child pornography is as disgusting and as vile as it gets,” Utah Republican Rep. [crscore]Jason Chaffetz[/crscore] said in a statement. “Yet, astoundingly, this is not even the first EPA Region 5 employee to face similar charges.”

Chaffetz, who chairs the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, has held numerous hearings on employee misconduct at EPA. Most recently, Chaffetz grilled the agency for paying a convicted child molester to retire.

That employee, who was a registered sex offender, was initially fired from EPA in January, 2014, for violating his probation. The federal Merit Systems Protection Board, however, reinstated the employee, and the agency eventually paid the employee $55,000 to retire.

EPA’s employment problems don’t stop there. The agency recently caught one employee watching porn on “bring your child to work” day. It turned out the employee had been watching porn up to four hours a day while at work.

“The problems at EPA Region 5 persist and worsen with each account. It is deplorable for an agency to have sunk to such toxic levels,” Chaffetz said. “Leadership from the very top is needed to restore the integrity of this office.”

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