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Suit says agency misspent federal housing funds
By BILL VARIAN, Times Staff Writer TAMPA -- Hillsborough's main agency for getting the poor into homes has fraudulently misspent millions earmarked for affordable housing, a federal whistleblower suit claims. The suit, brought by five current and former employees of the Hillsborough County Community Improvement Department, claims their bosses broke the rules to favor certain developers and penalized employees who attempted to enforce the rules. As a result, unspecified millions of dollars of state and federal grant money meant to help the poor more often aided developers and department directors who feared losing the money if they didn't spend it quickly enough, the suit claims. "My clients are people who worked in the department, knew the regulations and procedures that they were supposed to be following, and were told not to comply with them," said J. Michael Shea, the group's attorney. "They brought this lawsuit because they were tired of seeing fraud and abuse of taxpayer money." The lawsuit was filed last year as a sealed complaint while the U.S. Attorney's Office considered whether to intervene. Last month, that office elected not to. The County Attorney's Office received a copy of the lawsuit last week. Current Improvement Department Director Don Shea, no relation to J. Michael Shea, declined to comment, providing a written statement from the County Attorney's Office. "This suit was filed over a year ago and has not gone anywhere since then," read the statement from Assistant County Attorney Stephen M. Todd, who works on federal litigation. "Based upon our preliminary review of the suit there is a strong basis for complete dismissal." Shea, the plaintiffs' attorney, said the U.S. attorney's decision not to intervene had nothing to do with the merits of the case. "I think it means they're going to let us do all the work," Shea said. He said his contact with the U.S. Attorney's Office told him he had too many cases and not enough manpower to pursue them. The suit was filed on behalf of two current employees of the department, Marguerite Glenn and James Barrington; Linda Mandell and Duane Audette, who have since transferred to other departments; and Kay Jones, who was fired for insubordination and has appealed her termination to the state Division of Administrative Hearings. They claim that the county illegally gave federal grant money to organizations that didn't qualify, including a church and several for-profit companies. They also allege department Director Kevin McConnell broke the rules to favor one group, the nonprofit Alliance for Affordable Housing, which received nearly $15-million from the county for home programs from 1993 to 2001. The St. Petersburg Times last year documented that McConnell's wife and best man worked for the alliance and that the group won continued contracts from the county despite failing to complete required audits for five years. The suit further claims that the county illegally billed federal grant programs for administrative costs, unfairly granted impact fee waivers, punished employees who attempted to police for fraud in Section 8 programs and didn't seek proper citizen input on spending plans.
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