2 face jail spell in checks for hex
Welfare ripoff is bad juju
Something was off about Eliana Bauta, a city welfare worker with a fascination for the supernatural and, say the feds, a bent for larceny.
“She was the kind of person like — I don’t know — I don’t trust her,” said the husband of Geraldine Perez, 60, one of her accomplices.
“She looked weird at me,” said the husband, who spoke to the Daily News on condition his name not be used. “Sometimes she was OK, and then she’d get upset like nothing.”
Bauta, 35 — who Perez’s husband says has a lot of statues of saints in her home — is accused of masterminding a scheme to steal $300,000 in emergency welfare checks, which were deposited into bank accounts belonging to friends, family and accomplices.
In one instance, Bauta used emergency welfare benefit money to pay someone to put a hex on an exboyfriend, the feds said.
Bauta, a Bronx resident, carried out the voodoo she did partly by enlisting Perez about five years ago when Perez went to a city Human Resources Administration for emergency help after a fire in her home, Perez’s husband said.
“She (Perez) met her (Bauta) in welfare because we were in a bad situation,” said Perez’s husband. He said Bauta “took advantage of the situation, of my wife.”
Bauta, a jobs specialist with the city Human Resources Administration, got part of her scheme rolling by offering $100 to Geraldine Perez to cash welfare checks, Perez’s husband said.
He was wary of the scheme. “I told her don’t do it, because it’s federal stuff.”
“I told her I don’t trust that lady,” he said. “I don’t trust her. But my wife, she’s friendly, she doesn’t care. She’s a nice lady.”
Perez, of Morris Park in the Bronx, is accused in Manhattan Federal Court of depositing 23 checks worth a total of $91,000 into her own bank account as well as bank accounts of family and associates.
Her involvement in the scheme began around 2013, says a federal court complaint. Bauta issued benefits on Perez’s behalf that were meant to pay the costs of establishing a home, such as rental brokerage schemes, furniture grants, and property storage fees.
Such help is meant for “people who either suffered a catastrophic event, are in the homeless shelter system, or are leaving the shelter system,” the complaint explains.
Perez admitted to investigators “that she knew she had improperly received emergency benefits checks from Bauta, with whom she was friends,” the court complaint states.
Perez legitimately got some help for the fire, which federal prosecutors did not include in their calculation of her thefts.
Perez and another alleged Bauta accomplice, Eric Gonzales, 26, were freed on $25,000 bond at arraignment Friday.
Bauta was arrested in Florida. She worked for the Human Resources Administration from 2008 to 2018.
Perez’s husband is afraid of what will happen if his wife ends up in prison. “We’ve been together for 36 years. And she’s a very kind person,” he said. “And without her I don’t know what I’m gonna do.”