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April 30th, 2016 
Awake Goy
Susanne Posel ,Chief Editor Occupy Corporatism | Media Spokesperson, HEALTH MAX Brands
The New Jersey state House of Representatives have requested that Congress conduct an investigation in the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) for allegations of fraud conducted by the agency pertaining to payouts for Hurricane Sandy victims.
In a letter to the House Oversight and Government Reform (OGR); specifically to Congressmen Jason Chaffetz and Elijah Cummings, asking for an “investigation by Congress as part of its oversight role” alleging that “FEMA knew about fraud and failed to act, or had any involvement in underpayment in claims.”
NJ state representative wrote: “Helping Sandy victims is not a partisan issue. The entire New Jersey delegation agrees that it’s time for something to be done.”
Congressman Tom MacArthur said : “Survivors of Superstorm Sandy have been mistreated in our state, and after a meeting with a senior FEMA official, I am even more convinced that we must look into FEMA’s role in denying New Jerseyans their full insurance claims. Brad Kieserman, Deputy Associate Administrator for Insurance at FEMA left us with more questions than answers about how this fraud was allowed to go on for so long. It’s time to investigate this situation, and I am hopeful that the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will do so quickly.”
MacArthur added: “Helping Sandy victims is not a partisan issue. The entire New Jersey delegation agrees that it’s time for something to be done.”
The problem these representatives are referring to started with the 2014 request by FEMA for $1.4 million doled out to victims of Hurricane Sandy to be repaid to the federal agency.
After FEMA inspected nearly 4,500 homes they allege that some may “have received improper payments” after the storm was over.
Cities in New York and New Jersey marked for returns include:
• Queens
• Brooklyn
• Staten Island
• Long Beach
• Freeport
• Seaside Heights
• Toms River
• Atlantic City
In 2013, FEMA requested 850 victims who received disaster aid return $5.8 million to the government.
The average request for aid was nearly $7,000 on annual incomes under $30,000.
During this “campaign” to recoup “overpayments” was established because of:
• Violations of eligibility rules
• Missing documents
• Mistakes on paperwork
• Fraud
• More than one member of the household received funds
FEMA also demanded $25,000 in aid back from a family because they “failed to buy food insurance” after Hurricane Irene hit their area in 2013.
In New York, FEMA is asking for thousands of dollars in aid monies given to victims of Hurricane Sandy from Belle Harbor Manor (BHM), a home for disabled senior citizens.
This scheme was enacted through correspondence with funding recipients in an effort “to recuperate huge amount[s] of money in aid obligations that went to barred homes, either due to errors, a misunderstanding of the rules or utter fraud.”
Robert Rosenberg, resident of BHM, received a letter from FEMA demanding that Rosenberg give back $2,486 he collected in 2012 because the intended purpose of the funds were to facilitate “temporary housing” and Rosenberg did not use the money for that purpose.
The residents of BHM were evacuated to a center that was set up at the Brooklyn Armory and were subsequently moved on to a “hotel inside a crime-affected neighborhood where [BHM residents] were advised not to go outdoors at night.”
The mentally ill were placed into a “partly-abandoned psychiatric hospital” in Queens “where they bunked on cots and were barred from getting site visitors in their rooms.”
Rosenberg said “the FEMA employees who advised [me] to get assistance during the time when citizens were staying in the armory never described that the money could just be used for housing.”
Rosenberg explained: “We are on the fixed earnings. I don’t have that money! I am suffering from a spine disability along with other chronic health issues. Long ago, I spent that aid money on food and clothing, both of which were in short supply after the storm.”
While demanding repayment from victims, FEMA sent out structural engineers to “find out how much damage to policyholders’ homes was caused by surging seawater and how much predated the storm.”
However, according to court documents, those engineers who were tasked with that project are being accused by 1,500 homeowners of having forged “bogus documents” to insurance companies which led to the denial of claims.
These engineers claimed that “a lot of homeowners were simply unaware of long-standing, but hidden problems exposed by the storm.”
Lawyers for the homeowners commented: “Broken foundations were falsely blamed on poor construction or long-term settling of the soil. Cracked and warped walls were written off as being due to old age.”
US Magistrate Judge Gary Brown stated that insurers are now mandated to produce reams of additional records that could help reveal whether engineering contractors edited damage reports in ways that improperly minimized payouts to hundreds or even thousands of storm victims.
Brown commented: “These unprincipled practices may be widespread.”
The insurance companies involved assert they “have no motive to rig the system. Most were merely processing claims on behalf of the Federal Emergency Management Agency; none of their own money was at stake.”
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