FORMER BALTIMORE CITY SOCIAL SERVICES WORKERS GUILTY OF STEALING OVER $100,000

Attorney General J. Joseph Curran, Jr. announced today the guilty pleas of R. Pamela Mitchell, 50, and Helene Pendleton, 45, former employees of the Baltimore City Department of Social Services (“DSS”), for felony theft. The charges, which were filed by the Baltimore City Grand Jury on March 24, 2004, outline how the defendants stole money from DSS in the form of fraudulent overtime requests between December 1999 and December 2002.

The defendants pled guilty to stealing approximately $115,000 during that time period. Ms. Mitchell and Ms. Pendleton forged the signature of a supervisor in order to have the overtime approved, yet neither of them ever worked those requested hours. As a matter of fact, they were never even approved for the overtime and continued to forge the signature covertly over the three year period. In some instances, the defendants were not even at work during the regular hours of the days they were getting paid overtime (even receiving overtime on September 11, 2001 though their building was closed due to the terror attacks on the United States).

Today the defendants appeared before the Honorable Paul Smith of the Circuit Court for Baltimore City. After accepting their guilty pleas to the theft scheme, Judge Smith postponed sentencing until October 4, 2004.

The case was investigated by the Inspector General’s Office of the State Department of Human Resources and the Maryland State Police. It was prosecuted by the Criminal Investigations Division of the Attorney General’s Office.

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