DOT Employees Falsified Dozens of Bridge Inspections

[Ichingcarpenter]

A 29-year employee of the state Department of Transportation has confessed to falsifying dozens of bridge inspection reports since last fall, filing reports for bridges he didn't inspect, said DOT Commissioner Gena Abraham. The malfeasance may have started just three months after a bridge collapsed in Minneapolis last August, killing 13.

The team had jurisdiction over more than 1,300 bridges in Rockdale, north Fulton, Gwinnett and part of DeKalb counties. The team supervisor, David Simmons, confronted with inconsistencies in reporting, confessed, Abraham said. Threatened with dismissal, he retired. His partner, a nine-year employee, did not admit falsifying reports, but has resigned.

The discrepancies were discovered after DOT supervisors suspected the team could not have completed the number of inspections they reported in the time available, or traveled as quickly as they said they did between distant bridges.

In one case, they claimed to have inspected 18 bridges in one day.

http://www.ajc.com/business/content/metro/stories/2008/02/04/DOT0204.html

[aquart]

1. I suppose we can't hang them for it.

Oh, well.

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. They can't even be prosecuted

I wonder how they got their jobs? Nevermind, we all know.

[malaise]

3. This is criminal

Did you see the MSNBC report on the number of bridges that have not been inspected for over two years - over 17,000 of them. Maybe more if others falsified their reports.

[Ichingcarpenter]

4. Yeah, criminal, corrupt, malfeasant and repugnant.

A betrayal of the public trust.
This whole nation is going the way of the 9th ward

[mattfromnossa]

5. hmm...

why am i not suprised?