Lost Cause
It's a wrap!
- Joined
- Oct 7, 2001
- Posts
- 30,949
I wonder how many security checks these jerks went through to get those jobs. Jeebus! What a world....no wonder how the terrorists get to us.
Two Philadelphia-area men whose jobs were to remove deadly anthrax from the White House mail-screening center were arrested yesterday and charged with stealing thousands of dollars, including cash sent to the President's Afghan children's fund.
Vernon Coleman, 32, of the 5100 block of North Fairhill Street in Olney, and Dane C. Coleman, 28, of Upper Darby, were arrested by agents of the FBI, Secret Service, and Postal Inspection Service. The two men were charged with mail theft.
Federal court documents filed yesterday allege the pair were involved in stealing $35,000 worth of travelers' checks sent to the White House Federal Credit Union and an undetermined amount of currency removed from thousands of letters addressed to America's Fund for Afghan Children, which was started by President Bush.
The President announced the fund Oct. 11 after the United States and Britain began bombing Afghanistan to topple the Taliban-controlled government and destroy Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network.
Bush asked U.S. children to send a dollar. Earlier this year, the American Red Cross estimated the fund had collected more than $4 million from more than 350,000 letters. Most donations were less than $25, in both cash and checks.
The arrests of the men, who are not related, drew public attention because agents wearing hazardous-materials suits entered both houses. Authorities said special precautions were taken because of the nature of the men's work - decontaminating buildings.
Both appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas J. Rueter at the federal courthouse in Center City and agreed to go to Washington, where the charges originated.
Both were freed on $5,000 bonds and ordered to report Aug. 16 for a hearing on the charges before a magistrate judge in federal court for the District of Columbia.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nancy Beam Winter said both men were employees of Scaccia Construction & Environmental Services, a Scranton-area company specializing in building decontamination.
Scaccia was hired by the government last fall, after a spate of unexplained mailings of letters containing the deadly anthrax bacterium, to remove anthrax spores from the White House remote-delivery site at Anacostia Naval Annex in Bolling Air Force Base in the District of Columbia.
Winter said both were fired by Scaccia on July 19 after a supervisor suspected they were stealing White House mail. The facility is where all mail to the White House is screened and X-rayed. It was closed in October when anthrax spores were discovered, and much White House mail remained inside.
The Secret Service last November began investigating the apparent theft of $35,000 in American Express travelers' checks shipped to the White House Federal Credit Union on Oct. 15 and then reported missing, according to the arrest warrants and affidavits for the two men filed in federal court here.
American Express was notified July 17 and 18 that $3,650 of the missing checks had been deposited in banks in the Philadelphia area by Dane Coleman, according to the affidavits.
Coleman was interviewed by the Secret Service and said he gave his wife $2,750 in travelers' checks to deposit in their bank account and used an additional $900 to pay off a car loan, according to the affidavits.
That interview led agents to Coleman's coworkers, two of whom told them they saw the pair opening White House mail addressed to the Afghan children's fund in the contaminated facility, according to the affidavits. Coworkers allegedly told Secret Service agents that both men showed them a 12-by-24-inch duffel bag full of U.S. currency and a mail bin filled with thousands of letters to the Afghan fund.
One coworker alleged that Dane Coleman "attempted to enlist his cooperation in removing the stolen money from the contaminated area and offered to give him a share," according to the affidavits.
Two Philadelphia-area men whose jobs were to remove deadly anthrax from the White House mail-screening center were arrested yesterday and charged with stealing thousands of dollars, including cash sent to the President's Afghan children's fund.
Vernon Coleman, 32, of the 5100 block of North Fairhill Street in Olney, and Dane C. Coleman, 28, of Upper Darby, were arrested by agents of the FBI, Secret Service, and Postal Inspection Service. The two men were charged with mail theft.
Federal court documents filed yesterday allege the pair were involved in stealing $35,000 worth of travelers' checks sent to the White House Federal Credit Union and an undetermined amount of currency removed from thousands of letters addressed to America's Fund for Afghan Children, which was started by President Bush.
The President announced the fund Oct. 11 after the United States and Britain began bombing Afghanistan to topple the Taliban-controlled government and destroy Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network.
Bush asked U.S. children to send a dollar. Earlier this year, the American Red Cross estimated the fund had collected more than $4 million from more than 350,000 letters. Most donations were less than $25, in both cash and checks.
The arrests of the men, who are not related, drew public attention because agents wearing hazardous-materials suits entered both houses. Authorities said special precautions were taken because of the nature of the men's work - decontaminating buildings.
Both appeared before U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas J. Rueter at the federal courthouse in Center City and agreed to go to Washington, where the charges originated.
Both were freed on $5,000 bonds and ordered to report Aug. 16 for a hearing on the charges before a magistrate judge in federal court for the District of Columbia.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Nancy Beam Winter said both men were employees of Scaccia Construction & Environmental Services, a Scranton-area company specializing in building decontamination.
Scaccia was hired by the government last fall, after a spate of unexplained mailings of letters containing the deadly anthrax bacterium, to remove anthrax spores from the White House remote-delivery site at Anacostia Naval Annex in Bolling Air Force Base in the District of Columbia.
Winter said both were fired by Scaccia on July 19 after a supervisor suspected they were stealing White House mail. The facility is where all mail to the White House is screened and X-rayed. It was closed in October when anthrax spores were discovered, and much White House mail remained inside.
The Secret Service last November began investigating the apparent theft of $35,000 in American Express travelers' checks shipped to the White House Federal Credit Union on Oct. 15 and then reported missing, according to the arrest warrants and affidavits for the two men filed in federal court here.
American Express was notified July 17 and 18 that $3,650 of the missing checks had been deposited in banks in the Philadelphia area by Dane Coleman, according to the affidavits.
Coleman was interviewed by the Secret Service and said he gave his wife $2,750 in travelers' checks to deposit in their bank account and used an additional $900 to pay off a car loan, according to the affidavits.
That interview led agents to Coleman's coworkers, two of whom told them they saw the pair opening White House mail addressed to the Afghan children's fund in the contaminated facility, according to the affidavits. Coworkers allegedly told Secret Service agents that both men showed them a 12-by-24-inch duffel bag full of U.S. currency and a mail bin filled with thousands of letters to the Afghan fund.
One coworker alleged that Dane Coleman "attempted to enlist his cooperation in removing the stolen money from the contaminated area and offered to give him a share," according to the affidavits.
