Patent office workers bilked the government of millions by playing hooky, watchdog finds; Washington Post, 8/31/16

Lisa Rein, Washington Post; Patent office workers bilked the government of millions by playing hooky, watchdog finds:

"Thousands of employees who review patents for the federal government potentially cheated taxpayers out of at least $18.3 million as they billed the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for almost 300,000 hours they never worked, according to a new investigation...

The investigation scheduled for release Wednesday by the independent watchdog for the Commerce Department, the patent office’s parent agency, determined that the real scale of fraud is probably double those numbers..."

Investigators also found widespread time and attendance abuse at another Commerce agency, the U.S. Census Bureau, where employees in the small hiring office overcharged the government for thousands of hours of time they never worked. The fraud, also carried out by supervisors, involved 40 employees, more than half of the staff of the small office."