D.C. tax office officials as far back as 1999 approved six-figure checks to an apparently bogus company whose name has surfaced in a widening corruption probe, records obtained by The Examiner show.
Eight checks made out to or put in the care of a company called “Bellarmine” totaling more than $2.4 million suggest that an alleged scam by tax office employees date the growing scandal to a time when the Office of Tax and Revenue was overseen by Natwar Gandhi, who is now the city’s chief financial officer.
There are no records of a company with “Bellarmine” in its name doing business in the Washington metropolitan area. Searches of national business registries and nonprofit corporations list no entity with that name.
And businessmen who are associated with the company in the suspect tax records said they have never heard of Bellarmine.
Tax office employees Diane Gustus and Harriette Walters are accused of pilfering at least $20 million through a scam that used a dummy companies — and, occasionally, legitimate ones — to siphon off money for shopping sprees, lavish homes and luxury cars. Prosecutors have said publicly they have found evidence of fraudulent payments going back to 2001.
But The Examiner found numerous questionable payments that go back as far as July, 1999 — when Gandhi, now the city’s chief financial officer, was in charge of the tax office.
On July 1, 1999, the tax office dispatched a check for more than $113,000 to “Bellarmine Corporation,” in care of Prem Malkani, city records show.
Malkani told The Examiner he had never heard of the company. A retired finance official with the Air Line Pilots Association, Malkani said, “I have no association with any company or business of that name. It’s entirely false.”
Court papers show, and a law enforcement source familiar with the investigation confirmed, that “Bellarmine” is a subject of the widening fraud investigation. Authorities have already alleged publicly that a 2006 check for $490,000, made out to “Bellarmine Home, LLC,” was based on fabricated records. The payment relied on legitimate names of businesses, whose leaders told federal authorities they didn’t know Bellarmine, court papers state.
On June 9, 2000, an $181,000-plus check went out to “Bellarmine & Associates,” records show, this time in the care of real estate lawyer Jeffrey Nadel.
Nadel told The Examiner he never did business with a company by that name.
On the day news of the scandal broke, Gandhi, who had supervised the tax office until becoming the city’s top accountant in early 2000, demanded the resignations of the four top officials in his tax office. He said he couldn’t forgive them for not catching onto the allege scam more quickly.
“You can’t sit in your office and send e-mails,” he was quoted as saying at a huge staff meeting called in the wake of the scandal. “You have to be proactive.”
Gandhi also said he personally reviewed and signed every check that left the tax office while he was in charge there.
He has not responded to multiple requests for comment since.
Got a tip on the scandal? Call Bill Myers at 202-459-4956 or e-mail him atl, [email protected].
