Los Angeles herald., 1910-05-27
FRAUD UNEARTHED
IN THE AQUEDUCT
ACCOUNF TING DEPT.
City Pay Rolls Have Been Padded,
and Officers Are After
the Offenders
AMOUNT OF LOSS UNKNOWN
One Man ConfeSSes, and Is Said
to Have Implicated Sew
eraI of His Fellows

nADDED payrolls in the aqueduct
service, the Justification of records
n by which men not in the service,
straw men in fact, were carried on the
paymasters lists on substantial sala-
ries, may have cost the taxpayers hun
dreds-even thousands-of dollars.
Warrants have been issued for the
men responsible for the padding. Of
ficials of Kern and Inyo counties are
cooperating in the search for these
men. Some of the guilty men may al
ready have been arrested, and 1t is eX-
pected that all of them Will have been
apprehended by next Tuesday, when an
investigation into the matter probably
will be begun here in Los Angeles.
The grating on the part of city en-
ployes was discovered in curious
manner. 1t is said that certain of the
men implicated became frightened after
they had secured pay checks on false
vouchers and neglected to cash them.
In checking up in the accounting de-
partment of the work it was discovered
that very considerable NUMBER OF
pay checks never had been caShed.
This led to suspicion, investigation and
the discovery of the fraud.
ONE MAN is DROPPED
Several of these uncashed checks
Spalding, secretary of the civil service
commission One of the men implicated
already has been dropped from the
civil service list. He is Il. G. Beberich
of 233 West Forty-eighth street. It is
claimed, however, that the city has lost
nothing through Mr.. Beberich. He has
admitted to have padded his rolls, but
it is denied that he cashed any of the
checks. Beberich himself is reported
to be on a ranch about ten miles out
of the city. At his home last night 1t
was promised, however, that he will be
on hand Tuesday, when needed.
Beberich has made a clean breast of
the matter. He has confessed not only
his own part in the plot, but has in
criminated a number of others. 1t is
understood that he Is to have an i'm
munity BATH though, of course, no
promises of immunity have been made
him.
The full extent of the peculations is
not known. 1t may be small, amount
ing to little or practically nothing; and
then again 1t may not.
OPPORTUNITIES PLENTIFUL
When members of the city council
went over, the aqueduct route recently
they discovered that the day labor en-
ployed there was about as inconstant
a quantity as can well be imagined.
The men, they said, seldom remained
in one place longer than few days or
weeks at most; so that the field fore
men were themselves hard put to 1t
frequently to know how many laborers
they. had in their crews.
This situation made the padding of
payrolls comparatively simple matter,
and corresponding difficult to unravel.
With thousands of men in the city
employ, changing almost daily, the op-
portunities for fraud and collusion
11xr Iars 10 ,nt Of
course, mean that wholesale frauds
were perpetrated, merely that they
may have been, and that the perpetra-
tors may have escaped detection for
considerable time
City officials are reluctant to discuss
the matter, contenting themselves
merely with the statement that the
facts will be developed when the men
known to be guilty are brought to
punishment.