FEMA employee charged with embezzlement

A human resources employee at the Federal Emergency Management Agency is charged with embezzling nearly $150,000 from the government, according to a court document.

Sheila Ann Howard, 54, of Capitol Heights, Md., is accused of submitting 26 fraudulent payments through FEMA's special payroll processing system during a 15-month period, and depositing $149,459 into three bank accounts and a prepaid debit card account. Howard is a human resources/personal assistant at FEMA's headquarters in Southwest Washington, and has been placed on administrative leave pending the outcome of the case.

She is responsible for manually inputting payments into FEMA's Special Payroll Processing System, which handles transactions that cannot be processed through the National Finance Center, including cash awards, special bonuses, compensatory time payments and restored annual leave payments. She allegedly submitted these fraudulent payments in the names of 16 former FEMA employees and one current agency employee. Law enforcement contacted seven of the former employees who, according to the complaint, said they did not receive any of the funds or recognize the accounts into which Howard allegedly deposited the money.

Howard could not be reached for comment on the case.

One of the former employees, who court documents identify by the initials R.P., sent an email to FEMA about a mysterious 2010 W-2 that she received from the agency for wages totaling $9,598.50. According to the payroll system, the money was to compensate R.P. for unused annual leave when she retired in 2009. But R.P. already had been compensated for her unused leave at the time of her retirement.

Howard was identified in ATM photos withdrawing cash from one of the bank accounts involved in the investigation. She faces a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison if she is convicted of the crime. She appeared in U.S. District Court in Greenbelt, Md., for the first time on April 8.

Spokeswoman Rachel Racusen said the agency could not comment on the details of the Howard case, but "FEMA has no tolerance for fraud against the agency or the citizens we serve. Public service is grounded in public trust, and FEMA works to assist the appropriate law enforcement entities whenever there is a possibility that trust has been violated through illegal actions."

The complainant against Howard listed on the court document is Richard Belvin, a special agent with the Homeland Security Department's Office of the Inspector General.