The FBI destroyed records indicating potential Medicaid fraud among haredi Orthodox Jews in upstate New York’s Orange County because they came from an unauthorized investigation.
Justin Rodriguez, a spokesman for Orange County, told MidHudson News on Tuesday that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had destroyed materials submitted by a county social services employee, Nicole Latreille.
Latreille filed a lawsuit last month against the county alleging that she was penalized for being a whistleblower after reporting evidence of $40 million in fraud among residents of Kiryas Joel, a predominantly Hasidic village inside the town of Monroe.
Rodriguez said Latreille was suspended temporarily and given a lateral assignment for using county computers and restricted databases “not pursuant to her official duties, but as a private citizen.”
Latreille’s allegations, Rodriguez said, “while populist, are not legally tenable and in fact may have compromised ongoing investigations.”