More on the L.A. refugee agency scammer

We came across a great article in the L.A. Weekly magazine: Is the Saint of South L.A. for Real?  It is a long, thorough investigation of Nikki Tesfai, the woman I posted about on September 23.  Amazingly, it was written in May 2004; apparently it has taken this long for the government to get her case together sufficiently to arrest her.

The author, Jeffrey Anderson, did a terrific job of investigative reporting. I know our local journalists don’t have the resources of a large-city magazine, but they didn’t even try to look into the questions that were raised about the refugee program, instead dismissing those who raised the questions as mean-spirited or even racists. Anderson, by contrast, took on a woman who was a local and national heroine, with a story so dramatic and pitiful that it would seem almost a sacrilege to question it, and followed his leads to uncover a riveting story of deceit and corruption.

The point about it is larger than this one story. We’re accustomed to hearing of CEOs and other businessmen who go to jail for one thing or another. The media love these stories. In my own life, though, I’ve come across corrupt government officials like Nikki Tesfai more often than corrupt businessmen. That’s because there’s less oversight and few real-world consequences like a business that goes under.  In fact, Anderson’s article lays out clearly how some government officials were not competent to recognize Tesfai’s malfeasance, while others appeared to be enabling her.  When the government is paying for something, it’s easy to forget it’s real money, supplied by taxpayers. It can seem like free money, and some of those who live on government grants forget this.

Nikki Tesfai seems like one of a kind. She seems to possess boundless chutzpah, a lot of charm, and perhaps some real charitable impulses. She also seems, from the article, to be a compulsive liar and inventor of amazing tales. The lesson to be learned is that she found easy pickings in the labyrinth of government grants and government agencies, as well as gullible marks in the media, and lived well in that setting for many years.