Wednesday, June 06, 2007

More State Licenses for Sale

I’d have used the word “alleged” in headline, but that would have made it longer.

Now a Illinois Department of Public Health private sanitarian (restaurant worker) license examiner is charging restaurant owners something in the neighborhood of $300 a certificate. No exam required.

Look what just came from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Chicago:

In response to each form, Koll caused to be shipped from the IDPH a specifically requested number of Sanitation Certificate Exam Books, which were the exclusive property of the state and were intended by the IDPH to be used for the specific purpose of testing an individual’s knowledge of topics relating to food service, preparation, and sanitation.

Upon receiving the exam books from the IDPH, Koll and/or others allegedly fraudulently completed the Sanitation Certificate exam answer sheets for individuals, ensuring that they would pass the course and exam necessary to obtain an Illinois Sanitation Certificate.

Koll then sent via mail or commercial interstate carrier a class enrollment form, the exam books, the answer sheets, and an attendance list to the IDPH, falsely representing that the individuals listed on the documentation had taken the course and exam necessary to obtain a Sanitation Certificate.

The IDPH would ultimately ship via commercial interstate carrier Illinois Sanitation Certificates to the individuals listed on the documentation, entitling the individuals to serve and prepare food in food establishments.

n exchange for fraudulently arranging to provide State of Illinois and City of Chicago Sanitation Certificates, these individuals paid money -- in some instances detailed in the complaint approximately $300 -- to Koll and/or her co-schemers, the complaint alleges…

The investigation is continuing, they said. The case is being prosecuted in Court by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michelle Nasser Weiss and Tinos Diamantatos.

If convicted, mail fraud caries a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The public is reminded that a complaint contains only charges and is not evidence of guilt. The defendant is presumed innocent and is entitled to a fair trial at which the government has the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
First the Illinois Health Facilities Planning Board; now this.

Public Health, Illinois-style.

Posted first on McHenry County Blog.

11 comments:

Anonymous,  6:07 PM  

Nice scoop! I hope we get a list of the restaurants "allegedly" involved. I will skip those restaurants until this matter is brought to court.

Anonymous,  7:10 PM  

Pat quinn is going to be govenor soon. Blago is a better looking more well spoken George Ryan. He maybe more corrupt. Blago your federal cell is waiting

Cal Skinner 7:29 PM  

Someone at DPH was asleep at the switch, but this is more a Cook County/Chicago scandal, it seems.

There is no allegation that anyone in state government took any money in the FBI agent's sworn statement.

Anonymous,  5:18 PM  

If we're going to call this a Blagojevich scandal, have we at least checked to see if the guy was hired after Blagojevich came in?

Anonymous,  5:29 PM  

Hey - any particular reason you clipped the first few paragraphs from the US Attorney's release that make it clear that Ms. Koll doesn't even work for state government:

Please see the attached criminal complaint that was unsealed late yesterday following the arrest earlier in the day of Maryanne Koll, 64, of Burr Ridge, who owns and operates Kollmar Food Safety from her home, where law enforcement agents executed a federal search warrant yesterday.

Koll was charged with mail fraud and released on her own recognizance after appearing late yesterday before U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Mason in U.S. District Court. A status hearing was set for 9:30 a.m. on June 18.

According to the complaint, from at least early 2005 through May 2007, Koll and others engaged in a fraud scheme by arranging to provide State of Illinois and City of Chicago Food Service Sanitation Manager Certificates to an unspecified number of individuals who were not entitled to receive them.

Koll, who is authorized by the state to teach Sanitation Certificate courses and administer exams, allegedly submitted false forms to the Illinois Department of Public Health, representing that a certain number of individuals would be taking a Sanitation Certificate exam to be administered by Koll at a designated place and time.

Anonymous,  8:47 PM  

Why is this erroneous thread still posted? Reading the text above leads me to ask "What does this have to do with Blagojevich and IDPH?" An individual submitted false information to IDPH and evidently got caught by the FBI. That is great for society but does not have anything to do with State government.

Moreover, the comment about the Illinois Facilities Planning Board was off base also. While the Board is staffed by IDPH, it has a separate Executive Director and Chair. Stuart Levine and company got in trouble when they went AGAINST the recommendations of the IDPH staff. It is a shame when partisanship gets in the way of a fair reading of the facts. I know adhering to the facts clearly is too much to ask!

Anonymous,  10:39 PM  

"Why is this erroneous thread still posted? Reading the text above leads me to ask "What does this have to do with Blagojevich and IDPH?" An individual submitted false information to IDPH and evidently got caught by the FBI."

May not have anything to do with Blago, but it sure could have a whole lot to do with either IDPH, Cook County Health Department, or City of Chicago Health Department.

Please note that the investigation is still continuing, and I have some insights into the entire process which tends to tell me "More to come..."

If you know anything about the process of licensing food managers, you know that every facility with a food handling license (be it high risk, medium risk, or low risk) has to have a licensed food manager on duty, otherwise it is a "Critical" violation as part of any inspection. Too many "Criticals" = re-inspections, = fines, and can even = shutdowns.

Ask yourself how the Feds got onto this case.

For something interesting to consider (as an example), Winnebago County has a 2 day course and charges $85 + book ($43 if buy) for the 2 day Food Service Sanitation Certification course.

Now, the complaint alleges that "our hero" was charging $300 a pop for a forged Certification. Very interesting. This investigation has the potential to go into a whole lot of places, including into IDPH. And it's going to be pretty ugly what they'll find.

Anonymous,  6:39 AM  

It is truly amazing that despite wide public awareness of public corruption and the expanded auditing capacity provided by computers, this type of corruption isn't extinct. But it isn't. And we let it happen by continuing to vote for the people who let it happen through collusion or incompetence.

Some government employee was in charge of monitoring Ms. Koll's contract. That individual should be investigated as well, their name/names should be published, and they should be fired for failing to provide adequate oversight if the allegations turn out to be true.

Anonymous,  6:55 AM  

It's funny how the Republicans are always try to put Blagojevic in the middle of a scandal...

Anonymous,  11:21 AM  

"It's funny how the Republicans are always try to put Blagojevic in the middle of a scandal..."

I'm not going that far (Yet), but it's interesting in that since the Blago admin. has been in place, many of the IDPH Region reps who work in these types of areas (and who were professionals) are gone, and in too many cases, replaced by pol. hacks who are just flat out unqualified to do their jobs.

We can tell - you see fewer & fewer IDPH staff all the time at the professional meetings and certification training. The hacks don't go to these types of meetings, because it will be rapidly apparent that they have no knowledge into what they are supposed to be administering. The good news is, we still get to see the dwindling "hard core" who have been doing this work and know their stuff.

In fact, the most interesting part is that a number of those qualified people who are leaving are finding work with local Health departments, and private business. After all, real talent doesn't just sit around when it gets kicked out the door by the hacks.

Anonymous,  10:16 AM  

Last I knew, Burr Ridge was overwhelmingly REPUBLICAN. Why wasn't this little snippet of suburban Republican pinstripe connection mentioned as well?

Nothing like Cal's McHenry myopia to get us motivated on a daily basis

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