One of 10 people charged in a “ghost employee” scam to defraud the Lee County Port Authority pleaded guilty Monday to felony conspiracy charges.
Thomas Brennan, 73, of Fort Myers, was site manager and ultimately discovered to have falsified time sheets that were submitted to the Port Authority, charging them more than $900,000 for hours never worked and turning in timesheets for “ghost employees.”
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The Lee County Port Authority is the government agency that oversees Southwest Florida International Airport.
Brennan’s plea was not part of a plea agreement but part of a defendant’s right to plea directly to the court instead of having a jury trial. He will sentenced on May 9.
The illegal activity was uncovered during an audit of Port Authority airport service contracts by the Lee County Clerk of Court that began in late 2017.
The audit identified possible criminal activity with Triangle Services of Florida, the agency that was contracted to clean the airport. The Port Authority board fired Triangle with 32 months remaining on its contract.
The audit findings were reviewed by the State Attorney’s Office of the 20th Judicial District’s Economic Crimes Unit which determined there was evidence of criminal activity.
The case was turned over to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement for further investigation.
The audit found that Brennan was putting “ghost” employees on the books. These were real people.
Brennan would manually add the employees to the automated system since they did not physically, nor in any way, report to work.
The audit identified employees added to the third shift from 2014 through 2017 who did not actually work at the airport. The third shift is between 11 p.m. to 7:30 a.m.
The probe concluded that employees not only never reported to work, they never trained and never used their airport access badges.
Investigators said that Brennan used the named of an unknowing family member as part of the scheme. As the law closed in, he tried to list all of the fake employees as having been fired, FDLE investigators said.
The ghost employees were getting their salaries billed to the Lee County Port Authority and are now defendants in the case.
The ghost workers are accused of getting fraudulent paychecks, some also getting health insurance, and then either giving financial benefits such as a few hundred dollars per paycheck or personal services such as mowing Brennan’s lawn, the investigation revealed.
Six other defendants have been convicted. In the cases that have concluded, the State has collected $223,800 in restitution as a condition of sentencing, a news release reports.
The airport authority hired a new janitorial services company.
The Port Authority ended the use of a cost-plus contract that provided an avenue to profit from fake time sheets. The new contractor will be billed based on the size of the areas to be cleaned.
Under Triangle, 80% of the contract cost was for employee pay.
Connect with breaking news reporter Michael Braun: MichaelBraunNP (Facebook), @MichaelBraunNP (Twitter) or mbraun@news-press.com.
