Aid workers get 12 years for US aid fraud in Liberia
Tue Apr 26, 7:30 pm ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Two former humanitarian workers were sentenced to nearly 12 years in prison each Tuesday for defrauding the US aid agency of $1.9 million destined for thousands of poor families in post-war Liberia.
US District Court Judge Reggie Walton in the capital Washington also ordered Joe Bondo, 39, and Morris Fahnbulleh, 41, to pay a total of $1.2 million in restitution, In addition to their 142-month jail term, they also were sentenced to three subsequent years of supervised release.
The pair, both from Monrovia, were convicted in November to one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, four counts of mail fraud, two counts of wire fraud and four false claims counts.
Bondo got another two counts of witness tampering, while Fahnbulleh was also convicted of one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud.
"Bondo and Fahnbulleh defrauded USAID of nearly $2 million intended to provide food for the needy and build infrastructure in war-torn Liberia. Serious crimes deserve serious punishment," said Assistant Attorney General Lanny Breuer.
The US Agency for International Development awarded a grant in 2005 to non-profit group World Vision to assist Liberia as it recovers from a 14-year civil war that ended in 2003 after 250,000 people lost their lives.
The grant was intended to fund a two-year humanitarian project for communication reconstruction in Liberia.
Bondo and Fahnbulleh were assigned under the agreement to supervise World Vision employees assisting Liberia with infrastructure projects, such as building roads, wells and latrines. USAID was then due to distribute food to residents of the communities in exchange for their work.
But a 2008 World Vision internal audit found that up to 91 percent of the food never reached the impoverished Liberian communities. Evidence presented at the trial found Bondo and Fahnbulleh had instead sold the food, kept the proceeds and told World Vision employees to falsify food distribution files.
The pair also ordered USAID employees to renovate their own personal compounds rather than build the roads, clinics, schools and other projects paid for by the US federal government.
And they intimidated World Vision employees with threats of getting them fired and by paying "hush money" to some of their subordinates, according to court documents.
"As a result of the defendants' conduct, thousands of families never got the food or reconstruction assistance they were intended to receive," the Justice Department said, noting that over 250 Liberian towns had filed statements to the court detailing the fraud's impact.
World Vision was said to have reimbursed about $1.9 million to USAID through Catholic Relief Services, another charity.
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