Audit finds State Fire Marshal employee and brother bilked Louisiana for nearly $400,000

The Louisiana Legislative Auditor has released a report detailing the findings of a money laundering and racketeering investigation that led to indictments this summer of a State Fire Marshal’s Office employee, his brother and several others accused of defrauding the state of nearly $400,000.

At the center of the scheme, according to the audit, was former Lt. Robert McCormick, an emergency management officer for the State Fire Marshal’s Office, and his brother Thomas McCormick, a lawyer who formerly worked as a fraud prosecutor at the Louisiana Attorney General’s office until at least 2018, according to a profile piece by the Pointe Coupee Reporter.

The audit, released last week, said Robert McCormick “used his position to improperly direct state funds totaling $846,140 to companies doing business with or on behalf of his brother, Thomas McCormick,” from Aug. 30, 2020 to April 29, 2021.

Robert McCormick was part of the logistics team that decided which companies got contracts to provide disaster-relief services when the Fire Marshal’s Office responded to hurricanes. He and his brother, according to the audit, allegedly used the McCormick Law Firm as a way to alter contractor invoices and inflate prices in order to pocket money for themselves and others involved in the scheme.

Read more: https://lailluminator.com/2021/11/22/audit-finds-state-fire-marshal-employee-and-brother-bilked-louisiana-for-nearly-400000/