Former Acorn and Schools Employee Accused of Fraud - City Room Blog - NYTimes.com

Former Acorn and Schools Employee Accused of Fraud - City Room Blog - NYTimes.com: "The free corporate rewards gifts arrived by the dozens: $5,000 IBM gift certificates, $500 travel coupons, Broadway show tickets, tickets to Mets and Yankees games. The only problem was that, according to city schools investigators, it was all based on a scam.

Investigators on Tuesday alleged that a Brooklyn-based bookkeeper and community organizer for the beleaguered anti-poverty group Acorn improperly netted $500,000 in merchandise for a corporate rewards program with Verizon, the telephone company, through a complex scam that went on for more than four years.

“She left no stone unturned,” said Richard J. Condon, the special commissioner of investigations for the city’s schools.

Investigators said the fraud began in 2004, when the woman, Donnett Davis, was working at the financial desk at a Brooklyn office of Acorn. She opened a corporate rewards program for Acorn’s 10 to 20 phone lines with Verizon, but put her name as the recipient in order to get the rewards herself, she told investigators, according to a report submitted to Joel I. Klein, the schools chancellor, on Tuesday.

Shortly afterward, investigators allege, Ms. Davis added about 9,000 Department of Education phone lines to her rewards account. With millions of dollars in billings, the trickle of reward points became a roaring torrent of gift certificates, L.L. Bean merchandise and other freebies, investigators said.

It is not known how Ms. Davis got access to the Department of Education numbers, but Mr. Cordon said he suspects she may have had help from someone within the department or Verizon. “We’re not alleging she did it alone,” Mr. Cordon said. “Quite frankly we would be surprised if she did.”"