The man charged with rooting out corruption in the District of Columbia’s tax office has come under fire for ignoring warnings in the office for years.
Sebastian “Ben” Lorigo has been the chief auditor for the city finance officer for nearly a decade and has been given control of the ailing Office of Tax and Revenue in the wake of the largest public corruption scandal in D.C.’s history.
Some elected officials are worried about Lorigo’s profile in the scandal.
“It was evident that the gentlemen responsible for the audits for five years failed to audit the one office that really needed it,” District Council Member Yvette Alexander, D-Ward 7, told The Examiner on Monday. “He needs to be removed.”
Council Member Mary Cheh, D-Ward 3, stopped short of calling for Lorigo’s sacking, but said she found it “odd” that D.C. Chief Financial Officer Natwar Gandhi would ask Lorigo to take over the tax office.
“It was the guy who didn’t do what he should have done,” Cheh said. “That seems a little inconsistent to me.”
Lorigo admitted last week that he didn’t audit the tax office while the alleged scam was going on, but he said he would resign only if asked by city leaders to do so.
“If there is no confidence in my ability to do it, I will resign immediately,” he told the D.C. Council.
Lorigo started his career in the city tax office, and his Web biography takes credit for installing “internal controls” there.
As director of Gandhi’s Oversight and Integrity Office, Lorigo managed a $3.3 million budget and 25 employees, all assigned to ensure that “accountability, integrity and efficiency are maintained in the District of Columbia’s financial management and tax administration systems.”
The alleged theft by a pair of tax office employees and their conspirators, through a blatant exploitation of the refund process, was either missed or ignored by Gandhi and virtually every employee under him.
Sherryl Hobbs Newman, ousted director of the tax office, told the D.C. Council on Thursday that Lorigo had not audited the property tax division during her tenure, which dated to 2005.
Trying to close the breach and salvage his reputation, Lorigo called the corruption “personal.”
“It’s a dagger in the heart,” Lorigo said. “It’s a dagger twisted in my heart.”
