In this blog I am publishing the interview with former Commissioner of Delaware County Department of Social Services, friend of judge Carl Becker who hastily retired, before expiration of his much-coveted term as a County Judge on the eve of publication of the audit of Delaware County and of Commissioner Moon.
Moon was recently caught in two acts of self-dealing:
1) in having his wife (with a different last name) to engage in "insider trading", buying up properties foreclosed upon by the county; and
2) in acting as an "executor" of a coerced will from an elderly person, the will Moon petitioned the Delaware County Surrogate's Court to probate, while the decedent's daughter contested the petition and spearheaded an investigation and ultimately a prosecution of a social worker who participated in obtaining the will - but not investigation and prosecution of Moon.
Yet, instead of being fired and investigated and prosecuted for fraud, as his employee involved in the same will-scheme as prosecuted, Moon was allowed to quietly retire - and was already hired as a Deputy Commissioner of Social Services in Sullivan County, vowing for "change" in Sullivan County - God help it.
Here is the interview of the NYS Comptroller's office with Moon in 2014, the year when the audit was conducted and when, at the end of the year, Moon "retired".
First, Moon immediately called the audit a "McCarthy audit", after Bob McCarthy, the former Sidney Town Supervisor who for some time has been raising raised of improprieties in how Delaware County and, specifically, its Department of Social Services, conducts its contracts, as well as about Delaware County practices to employ relatives of Supervisors in situations fraught with conflicts of interest, generally involving employment of relatives without probationary period of 6 to 9 months that usual new staffers go through.
McCarthy was also fighting for a long time Delaware County DSS' lack of accountability and acting like a "feudal barony".
One of the major "contractor" of Delaware County DSS is Delaware Opportunity Inc., where many supervisors are on board of directors.
I will dedicate a separate blog to why Delaware County DSS needs so much in daycare services, why it farms it to Delaware Opportunities, Inc. and how it squashes and destroys anybody who questions propriety of its inside dealings. I have public documents from two lawsuits shedding light on these practices.
Moon claimed that no RFP (request for proposal) and public bidding exists for DSS contracts because there is not enough vendors in the area.
Of course, the way to verify it is to post RFPs on the Delaware County's website, which will cost nothing extra, but Moon and other supervisors played dumb pretending that there are no vendors willing to work on public contracts in Delaware County - simply because no vendors outside of Delaware County are made aware of availability of such contracts.
Moon also played dumb pretending that, even though there is no policy of disclosure of conflicts of interest by members Board of Supervisors, there is no potential for conflicts of interest because all members of the Board of Supervisors are "either retired or small business owners".
Of course, such a claim was, very obviously, BS (and I do not mean Bachelor of Science), because being on the Board of Supervisors was regarded in Delaware County as an "especially plum job", where members of the Board were in command of distribution of tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer-funded jobs to their relatives and friends, as well as of million dollars-worth of contracts through no-bid process.
And - of course - no-one was aware of any fraud, abuse or misconduct. Of course, and the way to maintain this innocence is by not filing conflict-of-interest statements and financial disclosures. And to bad-mouth objectors - as Bob McCarthy was badmouthed by Moon, and as Marjorie Miller was bad-mouthed by the Board Clerk.
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