A former employee of New York City’s Human Resource Administration, the nation’s largest social services agency, pleaded guilty in Manhattan federal court Thursday for her involvement in a scheme to steal over $300,000 in funds meant for the city’s most needy.
Eliana Bauta and two other defendants were accused in November 2018 of diverting emergency benefits funds to family members and acquaintances for bogus reasons, for instance a natural disaster that never actually occurred. Funds went to pay someone for putting a hex on Bauta’s former boyfriend, prosecutors claimed.
