COVID tracer is charged with fraud
Allegedly collected $13K for work she did not do
In the midst of COVID-19 pandemic, a now-former city employee pocketed about $13,000 by falsely claiming she was reaching out to victims of the deadly disease, according to a criminal complaint charging her with felony theft.
Keyonna Selkridge was assigned 111 contact tracing cases — that is, tracking the movements of people who had been exposed to the COVID virus, the complaint filed by the Milwaukee County District Attorney’s Office states.
She “viewed (opened) only 15 of those assignments and edited or entered contact tracing information in only case,” the complaint states, quoting city officials.
Selkridge was charged with felony theft in June but was not arrested until this month. She is free on a signature bond and is scheduled to appear in court for a preliminary hearing on March 26.
Selkridge could not be reached for comment.
Fraud cases are emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic
Selkridge’s case is the latest in a long line of fraud cases growing out of the COVID-19 pandemic that have been brought by state and federal prosecutors across the nation.
Nationally, the IRS criminal investigation reported this month that it has investigated 975 tax and money laundering cases related to COVID fraud. The alleged fraud in the cases totals $3.2 billion, the IRS said.
“The (COVID relief) program was set up so quickly and was so widely used, there was not a great amount of verification,” said Tracy Coenen, a forensic accountant who specializes in fraud investigations. “The concept was good — business owners really needed the help,” added Coenen, who owns Sequence Inc. “But there wasn’t time to put good controls in place.”
In one of the more creative schemes, four men — including one from Wisconsin — tried to illegally pocket about $11.5 million from two federal programs designed to help businesses that were struggling through the COVID-19 pandemic, prosecutors charged last year. The men targeted loans from the Paycheck Protection Program and a second emergency relief program.
The men, whose $11.5 million scheme included creating a fictional country and embassy, were each sentenced to prison earlier this month. The shortest sentence was 80 months and the longest was 150 months in prison.
In Milwaukee, 30 members and affiliates of a Milwaukee street gang known as “Wild 100s,” were charged last year with defrauding the federal government out of millions of dollars of COVID-19 relief funds.
Selkridge’s alleged fraud occurred in 2021, prosecutors say
In Selkridge’s case, she is charged with “falsely representing she worked hundreds of hours she did not work, nor could have, resulting in her being paid over $10,000,” according to the criminal complaint.
The complaint charges Selkridge’s wrongdoing occurred during the first eight months of 2021, a time when government and health officials were frantically working to control the pandemic and the collateral damage caused by COVID-19.
“The City of Milwaukee hired in excess of 300 (temporary) employees to act as COVID-19 tracers,” the criminal complaint notes, quoting a city report.
The report noted that many of the workers “were acquired through staffing agencies but others, to include the defendant, were hired as City of Milwaukee employees.”
In fact, the complaint states Selkridge continued to be paid thousands of dollars even after an email from a city Health Department manager notified Selkridge and others that “her temporary appointment with the (Health Department) would be ending at the close of business on June 21, 2021.”
The criminal complaint charges that Selkridge continued submitting hours until August 2021.