Are You F%$@ing Kidding Me?

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Police: Evacuees' FEMA money used to buy crack

By MARK DAVIS

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 11/04/05

The three guys washed up at an extended-stay hotel in Norcross, part of the wave of Hurricane Katrina evacuees who flooded temporary housing facilities across metro Atlanta earlier this year.

But instead of using Red Cross and Federal Emergency Management Agency aid to buy furniture, groceries or the incidentals you need after fleeing a hurricane, police said, the trio had a high old time buying and selling crack.



Ronald Claude (from left), Joseph Sanson and Gary Leonard



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Now, Gwinnett police said Thursday, the three have a new residence ” the Gwinnett County jail.

Ronald Michael Claude, 22; Gary Lee Leonard, 23; and Michael Joseph Sanson, 20, all of New Orleans, remained jailed without bond Thursday afternoon on a felony charge of selling crack. They're also charged with possession of marijuana.

Police were happy to put them behind bars, said Officer Darren Moloney, a spokesman for Gwinnett police. "What is unique about these three is that they all seemed to be on the same page," he said. "They thought the government owed it [cash] to them. They were all quite boastful about it."

Officials at the Red Cross and FEMA, which have distributed millions to help storm victims, were appalled, but unapologetic. Most aid recipients, they said, have used the donations properly.

"We can't control how people spend their assistance money," said FEMA spokeswoman Susie Webb, who works at the agency's regional offices in Atlanta.

FEMA has handled claims from more than 46,000 families who fled Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and settled in Georgia, Webb said. It also has a contract with a company that arranges hotel and motel lodging for some evacuees.

"That was very bad judgment on parts," added Tiffany Fell of the Red Cross, a nongovernmental aid agency.

Police arrested the men about midnight Wednesday at the Amberley Suite Hotel in Norcross, a three-story complex hard against I-85 where weekly accommodations start at $281.33. Its parking lot is dotted with cars from Mississippi and Louisiana.

Claude, Sanson and Leonard, said police, shared room 136. They noticed the men while investigating an unrelated shooting, Moloney said.

As they talked to the men, investigators quickly determined that the three hadn't used government and Red Cross help in the intended manner, Moloney said. When police arrested him, Sanson had about $600 ” Red Cross aid, he told investigators.

The Red Cross has handled more than 33,000 Katrina cases in metro Atlanta, disbursing as much as $1,500 to some families, said Fell. She could not confirm whether Claude, Leonard or Sanson had received aid.

Sanson also had a fraudulent ID card that he said he'd used to rent rooms at government expense. Hotel clerks, seeing the New Orleans address on the card, simply billed FEMA for the room, police said.

Leonard told police he'd rented two hotel rooms, plus a house for his family, all at government expense, Moloney said. "He's got a house to stay in, but it's inconvenient because he has family there," said Moloney.

He had also relied on the Red Cross and FEMA to underwrite his $20-a-day drug habit, Leonard told police.

Police at first were surprised at the suspects' candor, Moloney said. Then they got mad.

"It's my tax dollars going down the tube, too," Moloney said.

The news also steamed Mary Margaret Walker, a FEMA spokeswoman in Washington. "What these gentlemen did, if they did it, is fraud," she said. "We won't tolerate it."

If the three men were drug dealers, a handful of people staying at the hotel said Thursday, they were quiet ones.

"What? Here?" asked Bobby Barrett, a Fulton man who's staying on the third floor with his daughter, Brikita.

Police were still investigating the case and may call in some help. The FBI, said Moloney, might want to know more about evacuees' federally funded lifestyle.