Fraud charged in NYC electronic worksheet program

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A program to switch New York City workers to electronic timesheets from paper versions has cost the city more than $80 million in a fraudulent scheme that included money laundering, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York said on Wednesday.

The four consultants charged were Mark Mazer, Dmitry Aronshtein, Victor Natanzon and Scott Berger, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said in a statement.

Mazer and Berger set up their own consulting companies and were paid through their own firms by Spherion, part of SFN Group Inc, for quality assurance work. A Spherion spokesman was not immediately available.

"In an elaborate scheme that included shell companies, kickbacks, and international money laundering, Mark Mazer and his cohorts allegedly used the city as their personal cash cow, making misrepresentations that led to the misappropriation of tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer funds," Bharara said.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg told reporters: "You can rest assured, we will do everything possible to ensure that we get that money back, and that the perpetrators are prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law."