杨澜访谈录

17 Florida sheriff's office employees charged with COVID relief fraud: Feds_我的网站

海边的曼彻斯特

一 | The U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of Florida announced Thursday that it charged 17 employees of the Broward County Sheriff's Office with wire fraud after they allegedly tried to defraud the government in pandemic relief loans.The defendants, who were charged in separate cases, allegedly received $495,171 in assistance from the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), the Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program and used the proceeds "to unjustly enrich themselves.""No matter the amount, we will not allow limited federal tax dollars, which were intended to provide a lifeline to small businesses as they struggled to stay afloat during the economically devastating pandemic lockdown, to be swindled by those who were employed in a position of trust and cast aside their duty to uphold and abide by the law," Markenzy Lapointe, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, said in a statement.The U.S. Attorney's Office charged the defendants in separate indictments that were issued between September 14 and Oct. 11. Their charges include wire fraud, which comes with a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison if convicted, the U.S.Attorney's Office said.In several of the indictments, the defendants allegedly lied about their income in the application for the assistance, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony said in a statement that his office received a tip that employees were participating "in fraudulent schemes to defraud the federal government," and immediately launched an internal investigation."BSO Public Corruption Unit detectives determined more than 100 employees had submitted applications for the PPP loans. Only the employees who did not obtain the loans legally were subject to criminal investigation," Tony said in a statement.The sheriff told reporters that all of the charged employees were in the process of being terminated.“We still have to follow proper protocols and since these are protected members with union rights and other different statutory obligations from the investigation practices that we have to follow, but I’m not going to sugarcoat or dance around this — at the end of the day, they will be gone," Tony told reporters at a news conference.Lapointe said there was no "conspiratorial component" among the 17 charged.Attorney information for the defendants, who the U.S. Attorney's Office said were all employed by the sheriff's office at the time of their alleged defrauding schemes, was not immediately available.Matt Cowart, president of IUPA Local 6020, the union representing BSO law enforcement deputies, said in a statement to ABC affiliate WPLG that the union was not "privy to all of the investigative facts.""Regardless, employees and all citizens are entitled to and shall receive due process through the court system. The Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO) is a large agency and contains approximately 5,500 employees," he said in a statement.。

二 | WARSAW, Poland -- Polish opposition leader Donald Tusk declared the beginning of a new era for his country after opposition parties appeared to have won enough votes in Sunday's parliamentary election to oust the governing nationalist conservative party.That party, Law and Justice, has bickered with allies and faced accusations of eroding rule of law at home in its eight years in power. It appeared that voters were mobilized like never before, voting in even greater numbers than when the nation ousted the communist authorities in 1989. In some places people were still in line when polling officially closed, but all were allowed to vote. If the result predicted by an exit poll holds, Law and Justice won but also lost. It got more seats than any other party but not enough to be able to lead a government that can pass laws in the legislature. The Ipsos exit poll suggested that Law and Justice obtained 200 seats. Its potential partner, the far-right Confederation got 12 seats, a showing the party acknowledged was a defeat.It also showed that three opposition parties have likely won a combined 248 seats in the 460-seat lower house of parliament, the Sejm. The largest of the groups is Civic Coalition, led by Tusk, a former prime minister and former European Union president. It won 31.6% of votes, the exit poll said. “I have been a politician for many years. I’m an athlete. Never in my life have I been so happy about taking seemingly second place. Poland won. Democracy has won. We have removed them from power,” Tusk told his cheering supporters.“This result might still be better, but already today we can say this is the end of the bad time, this is end of Law and Justice rule," Tusk added.Law and Justice leader Jaroslaw Kaczynski acknowledged the ambiguous result. He told supporters at his headquarters that his party’s result, at nearly 37% of the vote, according to the exit poll, was a success, making it the party to win the most votes for three parliamentary elections in a row. “We must have hope and we must also know that regardless of whether we are in power or in the opposition, we will implement this (political) project in various ways and we will not allow Poland to be betrayed," Kaczynski said.If the result holds, and Law and Justice is the single party with the most seats, then it would most likely get the first chance to try to build a government.It falls to President Andrzej Duda, who is an ally of Law and Justice, to tap a party to try to form a government.Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on Polsat News that Duda “will entrust the mission of forming the government to the winning party and in this first step we will certainly try to build a parliamentary majority."Three opposition parties, Tusk's Civic Coalition, Third Way and the New Left, ran on separate tickets but with the same promises of seeking to oust Law and Justice and restore good ties with the European Union.Wlodzimierz Czarzasty, a leader of the Left party, vowed to work with the others to “create a democratic, strong, reasonable and predictable government.”Katarzyna Pelczynska-Nalecz, the head of election campaign for Third Way, called it a “huge day for our democracy.”Votes were still being counted and the state electoral commission says it expects to have final results by Tuesday morning.At stake are the health of the nation’s constitutional order, its legal stance on LGBTQ+ rights and abortion, and the foreign alliances of a country that has been a crucial ally to Ukraine after Russia launched its full-scale invasion.LGBTQ+ rights activist Bart Staszewski called it the end of a “nightmare” for himself as a gay man and others.“This is just the beginning of reclaiming of our country. The fight is ahead but we are breathing fresh air today,” Staszewski said.Environmental activist Dominika Lasota was emotional with relief, saying “we have our future.”Law and Justice has eroded checks and balances to gain more control over state institutions, including the courts, public media and the electoral process itself.During the campaign many Poles described the vote as the most important one since 1989, when a new democracy was born after decades of communism.Turnout Sunday appeared to be even higher than the 63% of voters who turned out for the 1989 election that led to the ouster of the communists. Despite many uncertainties ahead, what appeared certain was that support for the governing party has shrunk since the last election in 2019 when it won nearly 44% of the vote, its popularity dented by high inflation, allegations of cronyism and bickering with European allies.There is a high level of state ownership in the Polish economy, and the governing party has built up a system of patronage, handing out thousands of jobs and contracts to its loyalists. A political change could open the way for the EU to release billions of euros in funding that has been withheld over what the EU viewed as democratic erosion.Piotr Buras, of the European Council of Foreign Relations, said the opposition had gained from “growing fatigue” with the government among Poles, "beyond the groups usually supporting the liberals.” The fate of Poland's relationship with Ukraine was also at stake. The Confederation party campaigned on an anti-Ukraine message, accusing the country of lacking gratitude to Poland for its help in Russia's war. Its poor showing will be a relief for Kyiv.A referendum on migration, the retirement age and other issues was held simultaneously. Some government opponents called on voters to boycott the referendum, saying it was an attempt by the government to galvanize its supporters. Many voters were seen refusing to take part in the referendum.___Associated Press journalists Kwiyeon Ha, Pietro De Cristofaro and Rafal Niedzielski contributed to this report.。