GSA Waste Goes Much Deeper Than the Las Vegas Junket
It was a simple scam: Coleen Newton-White, a government contractor, and her husband would take General Services Administration credit cards from the motor pool at Ft. Monroe, Va., and use them to sell fuel at a discount to cash customers who pulled up to service stations five at a time.
Between 2008 and 2010, the scheme netted the couple almost $300,000, according to court records.
Although the gas scheme is a world away from the nearly $823,000 spent on a lavish Las Vegas-area conference put on by GSA official Jeff Neely — including a mind reader, sushi and in-room parties — it is an example of the fraud that the procurement and property management agency faces regularly.
GSA employees and contractors — including at least one employee with responsibility for the White House — line their pockets to the tune of millions of dollars a year, according to reports by the agency’s inspector general.