Ex-state worker accused of fraudulently buying cellphones

Woman was in charge of Children, Youth and Families Department account

New Mexico State Police say in court documents that a former state employee is accused of fraudulently purchasing more than 100 cellphones with Verizon service last year through a state Children, Youth and Families Department account.

According to an affidavit for a search warrant filed in state District Court this week, state police officers began investigating the worker in May after other employees in the child welfare department found the agency had been billed for thousands of dollars worth of cellphones and cell service that weren’t being used by employees.

The New Mexican is not naming the accused worker because court records don’t show she has been charged with a crime.

The affidavit says the accused employee was in charge of managing the department’s Verizon account to purchase cellphones for child welfare workers. She allegedly used fake names and altered spellings of workers’ names to purchase 116 additional phones with activated service. In total, the department paid $23,160 for the fraudulently obtained phones and an additional $31,878 for cell service for the phones, the document says.

Finance workers with the agency discovered billing inconsistencies from Verizon in February, state police Agent Mitchel W. Bengston wrote in the affidavit. One employee asked the woman to explain the irregularities in the cellphone bills, and she immediately resigned, he said.

The finance staff reviewed Verizon records for all of 2016 and found that the woman had purchased several cellphones through the department’s account and put them under fake employee names, Bengston wrote. In other cases, she purchased phones for eligible employees using

slightly different spellings of their names, the affidavit says.

The employee also received upgraded cellphones for Children, Youth and Families Department employees but didn’t distribute them, according to the affidavit.

Some of the numbers for the fraudulently purchased cellphones were called, and the people who answered were asked if they worked for the department, Bengston’s affidavit says.

All of them answered no.

Contact Uriel Garcia at 505-9863062 or ugarcia@sfnewmexican. com.