Florida is a magnet for some of the worst criminals in the country.
They try to push the envelope of what they can get away with.
And a Florida man ripped off taxpayers with one sick scam that left Elon Musk speechless.
Federal workers secretly moved to Florida from Virginia
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy are going after waste, fraud, and abuse by the federal government with their work on the new Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
One of the areas for cutting government spending is stopping the practice of remote work by federal employees.
A whistleblower came forward to DOGE about one scam a federal employee is pulling on taxpayers by abusing his remote work privileges.
Antonio Carraway is supposed to be working at the Department of Housing & Urban Development (HUD) headquarters in Washington, D.C.
But he has been living in Port Saint Lucie, Florida since 2020 and working remotely from there.
Carraway even started a part-time real estate business that he runs on the side.
HUD pays employees who work at its Washington, D.C. location more money as a cost of living adjustment.
The whistleblower said this “Florida Man” has been paid as if he was still working at HUD headquarters despite living in Florida.
Carraway is just one of the many federal employees who are ripping off taxpayers with remote work.
The situation was so appalling that it got on the radar of RINO U.S. Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) who sent a letter to acting HUD Secretary Adrienne Todman.
“Florida man moonlighting as a ‘real estate professional’ while allegedly slacking at his day job is just one of the bureaucrats that I’m highlighting this Christmas season,” Ernst wrote. “Perhaps he conducts the entirety of his real estate business outside of the hours for which he draws a federal paycheck. Somehow, I doubt it.”
More federal employees are working from Florida
Ernst released a report about the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) who were getting paid the cost of living adjustment for working in Washington, D.C. while working elsewhere.
“One senior USAID employee lived in Florida for the duration of her employment but used an office supply store in Virginia for work-related correspondences to deceptively collect D.C. locality pay. Despite being required to report to the USAID office in Washington, D.C. twice every pay period, she was permitted to violate the telework agreement by her supervisor,” Ernst wrote in a report.
The USAID employee and her supervisor were invested, and criminal charges were going to be filed against them, but they retired and it was dropped.
Musk and Ramaswamy are trying to require that federal employees work in person in their offices five days a week.
A report found that there is not a single federal agency that is using even half of its space since the pandemic ended.
Only 6% of federal employees are working in person at the office on a regular basis.
Remote work has become a scam for federal employees to take advantage of taxpayers.
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this story.
