Illegal credit card use nets three $19K in gas

Gas may be hovering around $3 a gallon, but three Wyandanch residents managed to keep their tanks filled and stuck the state with a massive bill, officials said.

Since last summer, Omar Hanley, 22, of 28 S. 23rd. St., Sean Marshall, and Taiwana Knight, 31, both of 142 N. 24th St, have charged thousands of dollars in gas to state-issued Exxon-Mobile credit cards to fill their own vehicles, according to Suffolk County District Attorney Thomas Spota.

"We're all paying enormous amounts of money in taxes to pay for this gasoline," Spota said.

The cards were assigned to state group homes for developmentally disabled adults in Dix Hills, where Hanley and Marshall work as aides, Spota said. Knight was identified as Marshall's girlfriend.

The three were arrested Tuesday and charged with fourth-degree grand larceny, an E felony punishable by up to 4 years in prison. They were held for arraignment Wednesday.

More than $19,000 in fraudulent gas purchases charged to several cards have been uncovered since the investigation began last summer, triggered by a state audit. It is still being determined how much the defendants stole, said Suffolk District Attorney spokesman Bob Clifford.

The investigation is ongoing and more arrests are possible.

"We are in the process of reviewing other records to see if [other employees] were part and parcel to the same scheme," said State Inspector General Kristine Hamann.

When asked to explain the charges as he was led from a county building in Hauppauge Tuesday, Marshall responded, "Hell, no."

A representative of the New York State Inspector General's office said Marshall was recorded by a video camera at an Exxon station in Huntington misusing a state card 28 times, over a nine-month period while Hanley was recorded 11 times. Knight was recorded three times.

One video shows Marshall and Knight arriving at the station together in separate vehicles -- a Saturn and a Nissan -- and fueling both with a single swipe of a card.

Home employees are given personal identification numbers to use cards assigned to individual state vehicles.

The state Office of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities, which oversees the homes, "will take immediate action to have greater control over the entire program," said executive deputy commissioner Helene DeSanto.

BY ANDREW STRICKLER

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