Mar 31, 2006 5:21 am US/Pacific
Red Cross Asks FBI For Katrina Probe
WASHINGTON (CBS) ―
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Patrick Keena, who was a Red Cross administrator for community services, says if there were abuses in his division, they went on without his participation or knowledge.
CBS
The Red Cross Thursday announced it has referred allegations of fraud and other wrongdoing to the FBI, in connection with the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina last September.
CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports Red Cross leaders were on Capitol Hill Thursday, meeting with Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley, as part of his ongoing investigation of the charity and how Congress may push to reform it.
Louisiana State Attorney General Charles Foti is also investigating allegations of internal fraud within the Red Cross. He has asked the charity for all emails and documents mentioning fraud, in addition to a list of volunteers.
"We've also heard that there were felons that were working as volunteers, which is against the rules of the Red Cross," says Foti.
He says he is also checking into the activities of a longtime paid Red Cross supervisor, Patrick Keena, a former Red Cross administrator for community services. In an exclusive interview with CBS News, Keena says the Red Cross sent him packing from New Orleans where he was coordinating Katrina relief until last week.
"I still have not heard from anybody from the Red Cross telling me what the allegations are," he says.
Attkisson reports allegations against Keena are stated in a report by investigators for the Red Cross. It says Keena oversaw a large division where tons of goods were improperly swapped, and that they lost track of hundreds of vehicles. The report also alleges that Red Cross trucks were seen delivering meals to restaurants instead of victims, and separately, that investigators were obstructed in a raid of computers allegedly used to divert millions in donations.
"It may have been going on," says Keena of the allegations in the report, "but again it was going on without my knowledge of it."
Keena calls himself a "Red Crosser to the bone" and insists he would never hurt the agency to which he has devoted so much time to serving.
"We tried to keep things in check the best we could, but illegal?" says Keena. "No, I have never seen anything illegal, and I refuse to do anything illegal against the Red Cross."
The Red Cross wouldn't agree to an interview but says its own internal fraud force is aggressively investigating many other cases and has already recovered two million dollars.
(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)
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