GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT
“The U.S. Office of Special Counsel (OSC) has ordered an investigation into allegations that the Department of Justice (DOJ) Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) improperly continued federal funding to Wisconsin under the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act (JJDPA).”
“The state allegedly violated requirements to separate foster children from adult inmates in prison or other secure detention. DOJ’s OJJDP also allegedly failed to investigate evidence that the state’s records were falsified so that, on the books, Wisconsin’s youth detention system would appear in compliance with the law.”
“The charges came in a whistleblowing disclosure by former DOJ OIG criminal investigator Jill Semmerling. In 2008, she was assigned to probe underlying charges raised by an OJJDP employee who had been told by a State of Wisconsin official that the books “were being cooked.” In 2013, the OJJDP employee, who remains at the agency, won a precedent-setting Whistleblower Protection Act case after suffering retaliation for her efforts to challenge Wisconsin’s misconduct. Ms. Semmerling, now retired from the OIG, was removed from the investigation in 2009 after finding evidence of widespread misconduct implicating high-level DOJ and state of Wisconsin officials.”
In September 2014 the DOJ published on its site a report dated January 2014, but the report reads as if no significant investigation was done after Ms. Semmerling was removed from the inquiry in 2009.
“Wisconsin continues to receive full grant funding from the OJJDP, and no OJJDP employee has been held accountable for the malfeasance in Wisconsin or the retaliation against one of its own staff members. Most significant, the report does not address whether Wisconsin was an aberration or represented widespread abuse. The report does not include any corrective action recommendations.”
See more at: http://www.whistleblower.org/press/special-counsel-orders-investigation-alleged-foster-care-fraud-and-coverup#sthash.zenGM9aP.dpuf