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StumbleCounty worker, husband accused of embezzling $91,000
Monday, Aug. 23, 2010 | 2:34 p.m.
A Clark County Social Service employee responsible for giving out rental checks and medical cards to the needy has been charged with her husband for allegedly embezzling $91,000 from the county.
A summons for the arrest of both Melanie Cholewinski, who was hired in September 2007 and earned $51,069.19 in pay and benefits in 2009 as an eligibility worker, and Michael W. Brown, alleged the two stole from the Department of Social Service between October 2008 and March 2010.
According to authorities, the embezzlement came to light in March, when Social Service employees discovered three checks written to Brown in one day. Looking deeper, police say they found seven cases in the name of “Michael Brown,” and all of them were handled by Cholewinski.
Then fraudulent data was found entered into the department’s computer system for each case. “For example,” the summons says, “the ‘Household Members’ associated with the cases had random letters entered into their respective fields instead of having complete names.”
Cholewinski had listed Michael Brown as her husband in departmental paperwork.
An audit, the summons alleges, later found that Cholewinski, the only worker who issued and received checks at a cashier’s window, had created several cases for Brown, but none of the cases had notes indicating when he had visited.
With her union representative present, the summons says, Cholewinski admitted to her employer that she had been “issuing financial assistance” to her husband. She asked to remain employed, the summons alleges, so she could repay the money. She was fired anyway. The summons says her termination was upheld on March 24, 2010.
Then in late April, the summons also alleges, Cholewinski and Brown met with a Metro detective and “admitted to committing theft” from the Social Service Department. The summons further alleges that Cholewinski used her husband’s previous case file to build other cases and create fictitious accounts “in order to request checks” that were cashed to help pay household bills. Both asked for the chance to pay back the money.
The two were charged Friday with conspiracy to commit theft, unlawful acts regarding computers and 17 counts of theft.
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Please tell me that she loses her pension if convicted. Please.
Of course not...
It takes 5 years to become vested in PERS so she would not be eligible to receive her pension anyway.
kg...hope that is the case for government jobs...I know that is the case for the private sector. They way unions negotiate, I wouldn't be surprised to learn that ee's are fully vested on day one.
Make them pay the $91,000 in taxpayer dollars back. Don't fine them some small amount and let them go like is normally done. They stole the money, pay it back. No reason the country and taxpayers should take the hit for this nonsense.
Wonder if we can trade them to the Taliban for some innocent souls. Then we can have a "stone" party.
"...hired in September 2007 and earned $51,069.19 in pay and benefits in 2009 as an eligibility worker."
No wonder government is going broke when a mere clerical worker earns that kind of $$ -- and it still wasn't enough. And it took a year and a half to find something this wrong with the county's bookkeeping?
Throw the book at 'em...
Do we have to wait on the corner's inquest ?
The nerve of her asking to remain employed so she could pay the money back...
"She asked to remain employed, the summons alleges, so she could repay the money."
I thought government employees were better trained and better educated than private sector employess. At least that's what SEIU claims. This woman is obviously a very low IQ person.
Every thief is entitled to a fair trial. Then you take them outside and hang 'em.
Is this a white or blue collar crime?
I would like to see the money paid back with
interest,then fire her.
Why yes mam you can pay it all back,making one licence plate at a time.Thanks for asking!
And while myself and several other homeless people who were duly qualified to receive financial and medical assistance (Clark County Health Insurance) from the Clark County Social Services we were denied and forced to live on the streets of Las Vegas.
I was denied medical assistance by the county although I was homeless, penniless and living on the streets with a major medical problem.
The county was fully aware I had a dire medical emergency that needed immediate attention. I had surrendered my independence of living on the streets and under other non-government sponsored conditions to address my serious medical problems which included a stroke and AAA.
My recorded blood pressure was 260/180 and the social workers knew of this fact as well as other the medical issues.
After a month of trying to get county insurance and being denied I checked into UMC Quick Care and was sent to UMC hospital by ambulance.
It took two full weeks with teams of UMC doctors and nurses and other staff to get my blood pressure lowered. I was told my medical staff to notify family and prepare to die. I spent an entire month in UMC having had a AAA surgery.
Upon release homeless people took care of me and protected me, not the Clark County Social Services.
The Pinto Lane and the Henderson Social Service offices denied me because I signed the application "signed with protest" when I objected to waving my rights over the privacy clause issue which stated I could not sue anyone for any reason, rather confidential or not, rather lawful of not and because I refused to lie about and change my address on my driver's license which was a Post Office Box of which I have had for more than 12 years.
As a result I (YOU)incurred over $135,000 unpaid bills at UMC alone , a county hospital, of which has been turned over to collections and credit bureaus.
While the county SS refused to provide my insurance the county hospital (the taxpayers) suffered a $135,000 loss.
The taxpayers could have suffered a zero loss if the insurance was provided as I was eligible under state and federal guidelines.
The corrupt bureaucRATS and politicians of this community will have their day in court now that I am no longer homeless and in the process of preparing my legal papers as well as documenting my case with federal officials.
Details will become public in the future.
How many other people were denied help while these social workers and government workers were stealing from taxpayer and getting fat? My story will come out and the abuse will be exposed.
ATTENTION IRS: don't forget income tax evasion!
Signed by with my real name, Cliff Harrison!
She wants to stay employed????? It took me 5 minutes to stop laughing.Doesn't she realize who her NEW EMPLOYER is going to be? and security is so tight...they put bars on the windows. Club Med here you and your so called husand come. Enjoy !!
First the State employed her and now the State will be providing a roof over her head. With NO conjugal visits from Michael!!!
Hope she shovels "brown" in jail.
CliffHarrison, are we supposed to feel sorry for you? It sounds to me like you needed to get off the juice and get a job a long time ago. How dare you think you have a right to a free ride on the backs of productive people. I'm stunned that you deem yourself duly qualified for financial and medical assistance because of your status as a bum.
I don't know who the upper management is at the Social Service Department but thats who needs to be in charge over metro, they don't mind firing people!
Why is it when a thief gets caught, they always expect to keep their job. I know of a school vice principal who knowingly wrote bad checks to pay bills for a new house she was building. She was caught and arrested, and had the audacity to complain that they were "ruining her carreer" by firing her at the school. She saif her $120k salary wasn't enough to buy the new house and shr "had" to write those checks. I bet there's a lot more of this going on than we can imagine. Throw these thieves in the jail and let them pay off the 91k at prison wages. Don't forget interest.
Spoiler, due to your ignorance I will pray for your soul.
Say its not so,, $91,000 is embezzled and the employee is brought,, along with her hubbie,, up on theft charges...A cop with messed up info gets a warrant on someone that is a small time weed distributor,, then shoots the unarmed man and is sent home... WTF is wrong with this picture here... I would say if the sheriffs wife was embezzling the cash she would walk too....I dont condone the theft but there was a lot of mistakes made on that shooting and no one is taking the responsible action that is due....Go figure...
the problem is that the supervisors are to busy doing their own thing trying to keep up with the ever-changing rules and regulations. wasting time in county meetings that result in nothing changing.believe me i was there for a long period of time. half the time employees who were on the cusp of unemployment were given 6 months to improve their lots. they still sucked after 6 months, cheaper to keep them than hire new ones. as for the dude complaning about his homelessness and lack of medical care, maybe if you were not drunk all the time you could have been in a better place. don't blame the system for your failures.
@mikeyg:
I don't drink and I didn't have any addictions, medical problems yes.
Your attitude reflect the exact same thing the county workers have, so I guess you are one of them since you know so much.
And if you worked for the Clark County Social Services like you said you did, I assume, you are now retired, that it on welfare supported by my 40-years of paying your way and now I've got to pay your retirement and health insurance and tons of other benefits.
Your ignorance shows your character, judging me when you know nothing about me or my condition.
DUDE: If you could read you would see I had said, I DID NOT use assistance until I was in dire medical need and then I was refused.
The ones who are on welfare are the racist government workers making $90,000 a year and getting stub your toe days off. Guys like me who worked my whole life and then found out the system I had paid for my whole life wasn't there.
Well, then what do we need the social workers for? Fifth graders could do the work and they write just about like you do, Mister Long Period of Time.
The problem is the supervisors and the employees are too busy using taxpayer computers to play their games, and taxpayer's phones to call their family and friends so they can chat all day long, I know, I've sat all day long in their office waiting for them to get off their FAT butts.
The system is a failure DUDE because the taxpayers are getting ripped off with jerks like you stealing their money.
So, what are you going to milk us, the taxpayers for another 30 years before you die of old age, WELFARE DUDE?
I happen to be known in this town by a lot of people who know my character and my work ethics.
One last note, Clark County Social Services broke the federal and state law by not providing assistance I was lawfully eligible for.
They were too busy stealing checks out of the cash box.
CliffHarrison, are you really teliing us you worked for 40 years and didn't save a dime, didn't buy a home, didn't carry medical insurance, didn't invest in a retirement account, didn't take care of your health and didn't improve yourself after 4 decades. This is the perfect recipe to homelessness. What did you expect to happen to you when you got old. Oh, let me guess, you expected, the County to take care of you. As you said to mikeyg, we know nothing about you or your condition, with the exception that your entire life has been lacking in personal responsibility.
You're right, Spoiler, for 40 years I've been paying to the welfare of government workers in big governments so they can have union benefits and lifetime retirement and health insurance and get what we in the private sector don't have.
Ask the thousands of Nevada residences who have lost their jobs along with their health insurance, their homes, their savings accounts, their retirement accounts the same question you ask me, Mr. Spoiler, and see what answers you get from them about their financial ruins and current poverty.
After losing my job, and before becoming homeless, my personal savings and assets (my emergency fund) carried me for 18 months, Mr. Brain. Financial experts advise only 3-6 months of liquid savings and assets to protect against economic crisis, so my financial responsibility WAS in order, meticulously so.
If you haven't woke up from your mother's bed yet, you'd see people lost their entire life savings from a recession and other factors due to no fault of their own.
And if you were out in the real world, instead of the glasshouse you live in you--and the government welfare sucker above--would see that real people nationwide have lost everything they ever owned--and in many cases the self-interest social workers are NOT helping them. (This is not to say that there are not some good and honest social workers or dedicated government workers out there, because there clearly are.)
It only takes one fox in the chicken coop to make chicken soup with feathers in it.
We are a nation of laws, and for a Nam Vet, of which I find hard to believe, those laws and funds were designed to provide a safety net against economical loss to prevent homelessness, hunger and medical deterioration. If you and people like yourself don't like those laws--or the funding of such programs--then WORK to change them. (You'll need to use your real name, like I do, to accomplish that, however.)
In the mid 70s 75% of the total dollars spent on social service programs went to administration while only 25% went to the recipients. I don't know what the percentages are today, but I'm sure a larger cut now goes to administration. Ask any Marxist and they would tell you that is not Socialism, but full blown Communism.
It's called big government, fathered by none other than LBJ with his so-called War on Poverty.
40% or more of the homeless population in Clark County are veterans and a large portion of them combat veterans who wouldn't deal with the nasty bureaucRAT BS of Veteran Affairs. These are men who were lied to by our government to go defend our country--then betrayed-- and now refuses to be slaves for the mammoth corrupt and evil government machine.
There's not enough space here and you, and Government Welfare sucker who spends his time in Downtown casinos getting drunk on my dime, aren't intelligent enough to understand the circumstances that lead to homelessness because you've been so sheltered and live in glasshouses.
You stereotype. You sound shoot. And you both have blown head gaskets to boot.
Those who ARE getting assistance are lifetime welfare recipients, professional entitlement filers and criminals who know how to defraud the system and trick the stupid social workers by selling blood plasma, volunteer medical studies service and working under the table for cash and other means, such as selling food stamps an so on, while honest applicants such as myself are rejected.
By the way, I worked during most of my homelessness although I was disabled, and earned not the $40-an- hour from my previous job but $7.25 an hour for 18 hours or so a week. I took that job because it was the only honest way of making money I could find. But I could not make a living on that kind of income, neither could you.
The local government is suppose to prevent homelessness, (the federal and state government paid them to do so) but they don't because they are abusive, corrupt and criminal. This news article about a social worker stealing only pertains to one, there are hundreds of them who are just as corrupt and criminal.
There are other elements to my own personal situation that are either immaterial, lack of space because of the complexity involved or simply none of your business.
Nevada is number one in foreclosure, unemployment, homelessness, people on food stamp and a number of other negative factors which we lead the nation in but when momma or the taxpayers take care of you (like in lifetime benefits to retired government workers and $600,000-a-year firemen) it's hard for you to see what other people endure when a catastrophic crisis hits.
Thank God you have never experienced what I have experienced and thousands of others in Nevada.
Bottom line, we need to get rid of unions for government workers, period! Government workers are servants of the people, but in this town the people are servants of the government worker. Government workers ought NOT have the security or protection the people themselves do not have.
You look at the number of government workers in this town charged with or accused of wrongful conduct or questionable acts and you'll get a better picture of reality.
It is a corrupt town run by criminal politicians and bureaucRATS.
Finally, it's not your decision or Government Welfare collector's to decide my eligibility, there are already a set of federal and state laws to determine those eligibility requirements (which I met) and the system in this town is abusing it because it is a corrupt and criminal system run by evil people.
No matter how one has an opinion of me, one way or the other, the fact remains that because the county (Social Services) would not provide my health insurance, (When they knew I was in serious medical condition and fully eligible for such) the same county on the other end (UMC Hospital) suffered a $135,000 loss. The taxpayers are the end losers.
Hmmm, the brains that are attacking me and calling me names and a drunk (when I don't drink and have no addictions) and they don't know my situation, fail to see the taxpayers are getting milked out of millions and millions of dollars right here in Clark County--and the media fails to cover the true story.
The $90,000 mentioned in this news article is peanuts compared to the real loss-prevention breach.
It is costing taxpayers in this community millions of untold dollars MORE by NOT addressing the needs of the destitute early with preventive intervention when it cost many folds more by paying at the extreme end when medical conditions worsen and turn critical due to lack of that previous intervention and failure to address those initial needs.
The "lacking of responsibility" you and Homer Freeloader accuse me of is of government workers failing to do the job they were paid to do with the funds that they were already paid with to do that job which is to help the needy; the homeless, the sick, the hungry and the poor.
I take the time in length to disclose all of this because I want to expose the truth of what is really going on within Clark County and the City of Las Vegas.
I truly wonder how many eligible applicants were declined while this accused Clark County Social Service worker was helping herself to the taxpayers cashbox?
My real name is Clifford G. Harrison. I challenge you, or anyone else, to provide your REAL NAME while you make negative comments on my former homeless situation--because I know the truth and you don't.