Perjury at NYCERS - Suprise arrest at FDNY

On November 20, 2009, DOI issued a press release announcing the arrest of Jennifer Ramsammy. She is accused of falsifying her time records while working at the NY Fire Department. The false records resulted in $428 of fraudulent pay. The Kings County District Attorney has charged her with 19 felony counts.

Ms. Ramsammy has worked in the pension bureau at FDNY since 2007. Prior to 2007, she worked at NYCERS. She left NYCERS under a cloud relating to her time records. Ms. Ramsammy is the cousin of Felita Baksh (a.k.a. Ramsami), the HR director at NYCERS. Prior to 2004, Ms. Baksh worked at FDNY.

Currently Fenella Ramsami, Ms Baksh’s sister, works at the NYC Department of Finance. Prior to that she worked at the NY Fire Department and before that at NYCERS.

Prior to the mayor asking for her resignation, Martha Stark was the Commissioner of the Department of Finance and the Chair of the NYCERS Board of Trustees.

DOI is currently investigating a work related perjury charge against Ms. Baksh. DOI is also investigating Ms. Stark at the request of the mayor.

Maybe, all of these issues are connected.

Perjury at NYCERS - Trustees sleeping

November 16, 2009 - This is an update on the DOI perjury investigation of the NYCERS HR director, Felita Baksh (aka Ramsami). Listed below are letters between the NYCERS trustees and myself with respect to this investigation.

It is clear from the letters, that the trustees are ignoring this issue. I thought the November 3, 2009 election would have provided the trustees with a date for action. They are, however, still allowing this woman to put the agency at risk.

This year Baksh again lied under oath. NYCERS is currently trying to terminate a long time employee because she allegedly incorrectly claimed to have completed three cases on a weekly production report. This employee had previously reported the agency to DOI. That did not make the current executive director happy.

At a disciplinary hearing at OATH for this employee, Baksh lied about a conversation she had with the employee. Since it was a two person conversation, she felt free to deny saying what the employee claimed she had said. The employee, however, had the good sense to record the conversation unbeknownst to Baksh. There is now evidence of two instances of perjury by Baksh.

NYCERS had the nerve to threaten the employee with disciplinary charges for recording the conversation. You can’t make this stuff up. Of course, the NYCERS legal director, Mazza, was involved with the OATH hearing, so anything is possible. This was months ago and there is still no decision from OATH. That is not a good sign.

For the record, this savvy employee also has an EEO action against the agency which is moving into a trial stage. In light of my recommendation to the trustees to put Baksh on paid leave while the investigation is going on and their refusal to do so, it is disturbing that NYCERS felt it necessary to put this employee on paid leave for the last nine months along with a 30 day suspension without pay. Remember perjury is a criminal charge.

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        August 12, 2009

Greg Floyd, President – Teamsters Local 237
Trustee, NYCERS Board of Trustees
216 West 14th Street 
New York, NY 10011

        Pub. Adv. Case #: 140753

Dear Trustee:

 This is a follow up to a letter I sent to most of the trustees in March, 2009.
The original letter provided the trustees with evidence of perjury by the current NYCERS HR director, Felita Baksh.

 Only one of the trustees, the Public Advocate, took any action with respect
to this evidence. The Public Advocate forwarded the charge to the Department of
Investigation (DOI) for its review and notified me of her action. 

 As of today, I have received no notice of any subsequent action in this case.
As reference, I am enclosing a copy of a May 9, 2009 letter that I sent to DOI 
Concerning this matter. Please notify me of the status of this investigation.

 In the interim, the trustees should immediately place the HR director on
administrative leave, since this is a criminal matter and the investigators already have clear evidence of the crime (an audio tape of DOI sworn testimony)
in their possession.



        Sincerely yours,



        John J. Murphy



Cc:  Ms. Susan Edelman, NY Post

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     THE CITY OF NEW YORK 
    OFFICE OF THE COMPTROLLER 
     GENERAL COUNSEL 
    1 CENTRE STREET. ROOM  614 
    NEW YORK, N.Y. 10007-2341

         TELEPHONE: (212) 669-2048 
         FAX NUMBER: (212)815-8714

         WILLIAM C. THOMPSON, JR.
         OMPTROLLER

Lewis Finkelman
DEPUTY COMPTROLLER FOR LEGAL
AFFAIRS/GENERAL COUNSEL

         August 19, 2009 

John J. Murphy 

Dear Mr. Murphy: 

 I write in response to the letter that you mailed to the
Comptroller on August 14ft and that was forwarded to me yesterday,
regarding your allegations of perjury by Felita Baksh, a current
employee of NYCERS. Your initial letter to the Comptroller in March
2009 regarding this matter was also referred to me and, at or about
that time, I promptly contacted the Department of Investigation ("DOI")
and forwarded your letter to that agency for its handling. Your most
recent correspondence makes clear that you have referred this matter to
DOI as well. Accordingly, you should follow up directly with DOI as to
the status of its investigation of this matter.

        Very truly yours, 


        Lewis Finkelman 

LF/lm 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

        August 23, 2009

Mr. Lewis Finkelman
Office of General Counsel
Office of the Comptroller
1 Centre Street, Rm. 614 
New York, NY 10007

        Pub. Adv. Case #: 140753


Dear Mr. Finkelman:

 Thank you for your August 19, 2009 letter in which you acknowledge my March
20, 2009 letter to the Comptroller and notifying me that you had referred the reported perjury charge to DOI.

 The Public Advocate had already promptly notified me in an April 29, 2009
letter that she had referred this work related perjury charge against the NYCERS HR director to DOI. The Public Advocate also sent me a copy of her
April 14, 2009 letter to Rose Gill Hearn.

 The purpose of my August 12, 2009 letter to the NYCERS trustees was to find
out the status of that investigation. 

 It would appear from your August 19, 2009 letter that you also do not know the
status of that investigation.

 DOI has never given me any acknowledgement of this matter in spite of my
Direct correspondence to Rose Gill Hearn or Richard Sullivan.

 The Comptroller, as a NYCERS trustee, is employing this person as the 
NYCERS HR director. This is while she is under investigation for perjury with 
respect to her official duties at NYCERS. DOI has the audio tape on which she
intentionally lied under oath while being interviewed by DOI in 2004.

 As a NYCERS fiduciary, the Comptroller should be protecting the fund from
this employee. He has hard evidence that this employee committed perjury. 

 I strongly recommended that the trustees place this employee on administrative
leave until the investigation is completed. I also request that you notify me
 whether you adopt this recommendation and, if you don’t,  why not.

 DOI can not provide the trustees with protection from misdeeds by this
employee while she is under investigation. The fact that DOI is possibly complicit in the perjury charge makes this action more imperative. 

 In 1986, the trustees dealt with perjury in a rapid and ruthless manner. Why
Such a casual attitude now?
 

        Sincerely yours,



        John J. Murphy



Cc:  Mr. Michael Barbaro, NY Times
 

Perjury at NYCERS

Listed at the end of this posting is part of an interview of a NYCERS employee, Felita Baksh, conducted by a NYC Dept. of Investigations (DOI) investigator, Daniel Lau, on July 13, 2004. Following the text of the interview is a excerpt from a letter written by Vincent Green, a DOI IG for Finance, on March 1, 2005. Finally, there is listed a part of DOI interview conducted, also on July 13, 2004, with another NYCERS employee, Karen Mazza, who contradicts Baksh's testimony.

Based on the DOI excerpt it is quite clear that Baksh lied under oath when being questioned by DOI. At the time Baksh was the HR director at NYCERS and still is. Mr. Lau, however, was not the chief investigator assigned to the investigation. That person was Carol DeFreitas.

Strangely, Ms. DeFreitas was an employee of the Department of Finance and not DOI. In late December, 2003 she was loaned to DOI through an agreement between Martha Stark, the Finance Commissioner, and Vincent Green, the IG for Finance.

The NYCERS Board of Trustees had originally requested the investigation which was the reason for the interviews. Subsequently, at the close of the investigation Vincent Green, in the March 1, 2005 letter, failed to report the perjury by Baksh to the NYCERS Board of Trustees. The letter was addressed to Martha Stark who was also the chair of the NYCERS Board. In addition, Green misstates what Mazza had actually admitted in her testimony. He also never mentions the fact that Mazza attempted to destroy emails between her and Baksh involving the resume or the fact that DeFreitas allowed Mazza to hide the emails with help from the LAN administrator at NYCERS.

In light of the circumstances surrounding Stark's recent forced resignation, this reporting failure by Green raises many questions. There is also the fact that in September, 2005, as part of litigation against NYCERS an attorney at the NYC Law Department was notified of allegations of Stark's involvment with an senior employee at Finance and other more serious charges involving pension investments. That attorney was Paul Marks.

Unfortunately, Baksh is still the HR director at NYCERS. She has since changed her name to Ramsami. Since 2005, Baksh has terminated dozens of NYCERS employees for trivial infractions. In addition, COIB has since found Baksh, a.k.a. Ramsami, in violation of NYC Charter regulations, in particular using a subordinate's credit card.

Inconceivably, Baksh subsequently fired the subordinate with an assist from Mazza. It may have something to do with the fact that the subordinate knew that Mazza had administered the final writing test to Baksh in 2004, which was the basis of her hiring as HR director.

Early this year I notified the NYCERS trustees and the DOI Commissioner of Baksh's perjury. Only one trustee, the Public Advocate, responded by forwarding the complaint to DOI. DOI responded to the the Public Advocate who then again notified me. I wonder how long it will take DOI to produce a professional response and how long the trustees will allow Baksh to stay as HR director?

From July 13, 2004 Baksh interview with DOI:

Lau: On that note, I’m only going to re-ask you one question and you’ve answered this before but I just want to make sure. I want to affirm that you are still under oath. That when you applied for the position nobody helped you with your resume, you said.

Baksh: No, no one changed anything on my resume. The only change that I remembered that they said and I remembered it because the e-mail said there’s only one thing that I’m missing. I’m sorry that we have to change this is on the cover letter.

Lau: And that was who?

Baksh:I’m a stickler or something like that.

Lau:That was Karen?

Baksh: Yes. I’m sorry. (phone rings)

Lau: Sure.

Baksh: That’s gotta be my children ……… - Sorry.

Lau: No problem. So you were saying. So Karen didn’t - just the cover letter.

Baksh: Yeah only the cover. She only did one – right.

Lau: One minor correction.

Tavarez: But Niki made the cover letter?

Baksh: Huh?

Lau: Well Niki also reviewed the cover?

Tavarez: Niki was the one who reviewed your cover letter

Baksh: They both but Niki – but Karen is the one that’s probably – I think Karen was the one who said it’s just that one word in the cover.

Tavarez: That was it. That was it.

Baksh: Niki didn’t have any changes to my resume. None at all. And I remember saying, you didn’t see anything you would change – any wor and she was like – no. But I think she was too busy. You know she just she was just getting into her position too.

From March 1, 2005 DOI report:

In addition, Karen Mazza, the NYCERS General Counsel, acknowledged to this office that she helped Baksh with her resume by suggesting she move things around. "

From July 13, 2004 Mazza interview with DOI:

Ancrum: Karen, the letter writer indicated that you had helped Felita in her application process. Specifically with her resume.

Mazza: The answer to that is yes. I help a lot of people with their resume. I have a reputation within our agency and among people who know me as being a real stickler for resumes. I’ve done a lot of interviewing over the course of my career – not myself – interviewing people and hiring – um – so people know I will look for and I will find, you know, the comma that’s in the wrong place, or the, you know, when you switch from plural to singular in the paragraph. So a lot of people come to me and ask me to look at their resumes and I never say no, and she came to me and asked me if I would look at her resume and I said yes.

DeFreitas: Did you look at anybody else’s resume that applied for the position?

Mazza: Nobody else – I didn’t know anybody else who applied – I said – I take that back. I do know Aurora Perez – I know her because our kids went to Pre-K together – our kids are not in 5th grade – but I don’t know her – but she would never call me and ask me to look at her resume.

DeFreitas: Did you make changes, Karen, to her resume?

Mazza: I suggested, you know, I may have suggested like, you know, switching words around or paragraphs around – like that – I don’t know if she made the changes because I didn’t…

DeFreitas: Because it was a suggestion, but you brought her into your office, you told her look – you need to change this around – do this – do that – it wasn’t something that you yourself physically took her resume and made revisions to it and made revisions to it yourself.

Mazza: She e-mailed it to me.

DeFreitas: OK

Mazza:And what I did was, you know, tracking on – how you do tracking on Word – with tracking I said I would move this here – I would do this, I would do that…

DeFreitas:OK

Mazza:So – that’s – so I didn’t meet with her to do it.

DeFreitas: Uhmmm

Mazza: We did it by…

DeFreitas: E-mail.

Mazza: Yeah.