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Editor: Mike Bothwell
Profession: Qui Tam Attorney

Category: Qui Tam Legal News

It is a sad state of affairs when skeptical qui tam lawyers watch a natural disaster such as hurricane Katrina, assume that the federal government is going to be ripped off by contractors, and it proves to be true.

It comes as no surprise to any qui tam lawyer who has been practicing in this area for any length of time that the Katrina contractors over billed the government. The AP reported on May 4, 2006 that a House Report concluded that contractors over billed in the $63 billion cleanup. The Katrina recovery has involved the removal of "enough debris to cover Brittan[.]" Contractors have inflated prices for the removal, changed the mixture of the debris to get a higher amount, billed twice for the same removal and lied about their mileage. The profit margin can also be astounding. "'It seems you get more than half,' [Representative] Waxman told Randall Perkins, president of AshBritt Inc. in Pompano Beach Fla., after Perkins said his company received $23 a cubic yard in a debris removal contract but paid a subcontractor $10 to haul the material."

Keeping that skeptical hat on, one might worry that the money Congress has yet to authorize to finish the cleanup, estimated at an additional $137 billion, might also be a target for fraud, waste and abuse.