A crooked Brooklyn social worker was busted for writing her boyfriend and his buddies almost $90,000 in “emergency assistance” checks using Human Resource Administration funds intended for homeless and poor people, authorities said Friday.
Elizabeth Valentine, 41, wrote 129 checks to her boy toy and his pals in 2010 and 2011 as if they were the landlords of struggling New Yorkers who had applied for rental assistance, according to the Brooklyn District Attorney.
“The main defendant in this case abused her position as a social services caseworker to steal public funds intended to prevent qualified, low-income New Yorkers from being evicted from their homes,” said Brooklyn DA Charles Hynes.
Valentine was charged with grand larceny plus hundreds of counts of official misconduct and falsifying business records and could get 15 years behind bars. Boyfriend James Whittaker, 43, and his pals James Baines, 44, and Howard Green, 47, were also slapped with grand larceny charges and could face 7 years up the river.
“An alert HRA manager reported discrepancies to Department of Investigation, allowing our investigators to uncover and shut down the scheme, and refer it for criminal prosecution,” said DOI Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn.