{"id":869457,"date":"2021-10-11T23:43:47","date_gmt":"2021-10-12T03:43:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=869457"},"modified":"2021-10-12T08:27:02","modified_gmt":"2021-10-12T12:27:02","slug":"delaware-state-auditor-indicted-on-corruption-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/delaware-state-auditor-indicted-on-corruption-charges\/","title":{"rendered":"Delaware State Auditor Indicted on Corruption Charges"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">14<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fdelaware-state-auditor-indicted-on-corruption-charges%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=869457&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The top <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-delaware\">Delaware<\/a> official in charge of rooting government fraud and abuse was indicted on Oct. 11 on public <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theepochtimes.com\/t-corruption\">corruption<\/a> charges.<\/p>\n<p>State prosecutors charged Delaware Auditor of Accounts\u00a0Kathleen McGuiness with\u00a0felony counts of theft and witness intimidation as well as three misdemeanor counts, according to an indictment (<a href=\"https:\/\/attorneygeneral.delaware.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/50\/2021\/10\/10.11.21-KM-Indictment.pdf\">pdf<\/a>) made public on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Among other allegations, McGuinness is accused of hiring her daughter and the daughter\u2019s friend for temporary jobs at a time when other temp workers were let go due to lack of work amid the pandemic. The daughter and the friend were paid $19,000 and $7,700 respectively. Some of the payments took place when after the auditor\u2019s daughter,\u00a0Elizabeth McGuiness, enrolled in a college.<\/p>\n<p>McGuiness\u2019s attorney, Steve Wood, said in an email that McGuiness is \u201cabsolutely innocent,\u201d and the indictment is \u201cfull of misleading statements and half-truths.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>When employees at McGuiness\u2019s office discovered and reported the misconduct, McGuiness used her position to monitor the employees\u2019 emails and to intimidate the whistleblowers, the indictment alleges.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe indictment includes a great deal of evidence that the state auditor repeatedly broke the law and systemically abused her power, beginning in her first year in office,\u201d\u00a0Attorney General Kathy Jennings, a fellow Democrat, said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/news.delaware.gov\/2021\/10\/11\/grand-jury-indicts-state-auditor-for-abuse-of-office\/\">statement<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur investigation revealed a long trail of corruption, nepotism, official misconduct, intimidation, and fraud that implicated thousands of taxpayer dollars\u2014all from an elected official who is supposed to be a watchdog for exactly this kind of misbehavior.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The defendant\u2019s lawyer\u00a0said Delaware law does not prohibit family members from hiring family members, and there have been such instances throughout state government, including in the attorney general\u2019s office. He also said the contractor McGuiness hired has performed policy development services for other elected officials in Delaware, and that all of the relevant contracts were \u201centirely lawful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe witness intimidation charge is pure fiction, and is clearly the result of fanciful tales spun by former employees with an axe to grind,\u201d Wood said. \u201cMs. McGuiness will continue to work hard on behalf of Delaware\u2019s taxpayers and intends to focus on the job that she was elected to do.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The authorities also charged McGuiness with setting up a no-bid contract for just under $50,000 with a company she used as a campaign consultant when she ran\u00a0for lieutenant governor in 2016. The contract amount and the payments under which it was executed were signed to avoid reporting thresholds, the indictment alleges.<\/p>\n<p>When McGuiness approached the same firm again in September 2020 with a second offer for a contract just under $50,000, the firm said they\u2019d prefer to proceed with a public bidding process. Another company won the bid and received a\u00a0$77,500 payment.<\/p>\n<p>The yearlong investigation is still ongoing, according to the attorney general.<\/p>\n<p>The Delaware Democratic Party called on\u00a0McGuiness to resign.<\/p>\n<p><em>The Associated Press contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"one_author_block round\">\n<div class=\"top_row\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/Ivan-Pentchoukov-2.jpg\" alt=\"Ivan Pentchoukov\" \/><\/p>\n<div class=\"names\">\n<p>Ivan Pentchoukov<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Follow<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>Ivan has reported for The Epoch Times on a variety of topics since 2011.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The top Delaware official in charge of rooting government fraud and abuse was indicted on Oct. 11 on public corruption charges. State prosecutors charged Delaware Auditor of Accounts\u00a0Kathleen McGuiness with\u00a0felony &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-869457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=869457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/869457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=869457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=869457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=869457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}