NYC prison workers arrested for fraud

City Watchdogs triggered alarms on Monday for exploded injuries from prison workers and announced the arrests of three correction officers

New York City has paid more than 1 billion US dollars in employee income claims to the employees of the correction to the department for employees in the last three financial years. All other mayoral agencies together paid around 600 million US dollars over the same period.

“The issues in New York City for employee payments have increased by hundreds of million dollars in the past ten years, which was largely driven by the increased claims of the DOC employees,” said Doi Commissioner Jocelyn Struber in a statement.

The report stated that employee compensation costs in the correctional department have increased by 337% since the 2015 financial year, from around 78 million US dollars to more than 340 million dollars in the 2024 financial year. During this time, other urban authorities recorded only 65% ​​of around $ 135 million.

In the meantime, the Federal Prosecutor's Office in Manhattan accused a current and two former city correction officers, Todd Faustin (43), Jovanny Concepcion (33) and Steven Murphy, 31, with fraud with fraud, mails from health care and false statements that deal with increased statements with increased people with increased people.

According to court files, the three a total of almost 1 million US dollars have collected billing claims. They are convicted of up to 20 years in prison if they are convicted of health care or post -fraud.

The officers' lawyers were not immediately listed in court files.

While the report of the Ministry of Demination did not describe the increasing injuries in detail, the investigators pointed out that claims of “usage losses” that enable employees to receive flat -rate payments for sometimes permanent injuries while they continue to work. Many of these claims include soft tissue injuries and do not require a lack of work.

The Ministry of Justice said that the number of injury claims had dropped by 21% last year and that the recommendations of Doi had checked. This includes creating a new director for the security role at the workplace and the update of outdated protocols for submitting claims.

“The NYC Ministry of Correction does not tolerate corruption, and we will work closely with partners in the law enforcement authorities in order to eradicate the abuse of the employee compensation and ensure that the fraud is examined and – if proven – punished,” said the spokesman for the correction, Patrick Gallahue.

The Benevolent Association Union of the prison officers said that the report underlines the increase in prison.

“When civil servants are injured by attacks or occupants, many with broken noses, broken orbital, stab wounds, fractures and severe sprains appear,” said Coba President Benny Boscio in a statement. “Many also wear the pure juries because they were rushed back to work too early.”

He said the three arrested officers had only a small part of the prison activity, and it was misleading to include their cases in the report.

The arrests and findings come when the city prisons are exposed to the investigation of the states. Wachdund and lawyer have long criticized prison staff for physical and sexual violence against people who are detained on Rikers Island. Just last week, a federal judge gave an external monitor authority for the discipline of the discipline of the prison. According to the job description, the new supervisor also has the task of improving trust with prison officers.