Doud told NBC4 during an exclusive interview in April.<\/a><\/p>\nAt the time, Doud\u2019s office was investigating homeless service providers and examining questionable billings, missing documentation and whether the city had received the services for which it paid.<\/p>\n
Doud said auditors had encountered \u201csome irregularities and some red flags\u201d and knew the findings were \u201cmore concerning than a standard, routine audit.\u201d<\/p>\n
NBC4 then asked Doud directly: \u201cHas this been referred for criminal investigation at any level?\u201d<\/p>\n
Doud initially asked for the camera to be stopped. When the interview resumed, she responded, \u201cI\u2019ve been advised not to address those questions regarding criminal investigation at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Five months later, Doud is now confirming that the investigation has been referred outside City Hall.<\/p>\n
It remains unclear where it was sent, when the referral was made and whether the outside agency is conducting a criminal investigation.<\/p>\n
What could an outside referral mean?<\/p>\n
NBC4 Legal Analyst Royal Oakes cautioned that an outside referral does not by itself establish that criminal wrongdoing occurred.<\/p>\n
\u201cUsually when a city auditor hands the ball to an outside investigator, it’s a sign that they think this could be a very serious matter,\u201d Oakes said. \u201cThey want somebody independent, somebody with special expertise.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oakes said potential outside agencies could include federal authorities such as the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office, FBI or IRS, as well as the Los Angeles County District Attorney or California Attorney General.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have no idea if people are looking at this as a possible criminal violation,\u201d Oakes said, adding that an outside investigation could eventually involve investigative tools such as subpoenas.<\/p>\n
No agency has been identified as the recipient of Long Beach’s referral.<\/p>\n
Federal authorities investigating homelessness fraud<\/p>\n
The development comes as federal authorities separately pursue alleged fraud and corruption involving homelessness programs in the Los Angeles area.<\/p>\n
On Wednesday, U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli and a federal task force investigating potential misuse of homelessness funding announced arrests in separate cases involving alleged fraud and corruption, including a case involving the founder of a Culver City-based nonprofit.<\/p>\n
There is no known connection between those cases and the Long Beach investigation.<\/p>\n
Before NBC4 received Doud\u2019s email confirming the outside referral, NBC4 had contacted the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office to ask whether federal authorities had received information involving the Long Beach\u00a0homeless service providers.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson responded: \u201cPer DOJ policy, we can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any investigation.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2018More concerning than a standard, routine audit\u2019<\/p>\n
During NBC4\u2019s April interview, Doud said auditors had encountered questionable billings and problems with documentation.<\/p>\n
She explained that without a proper audit trail, complete records and supporting documentation, auditors could not verify whether expenditures were valid or whether services had been provided as intended.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were some irregularities and some red flags that caught our eye,\u201d Doud said, \u201cand we knew that this was more concerning than a standard, routine audit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Doud also described the review as one of the most significant undertaken during her tenure.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is really one of our top audits that we have done in 20 years,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Doud told NBC4 in April that auditors were examining two homeless service providers.<\/p>\n
The latest disclosure answers one important question: The investigation ultimately did leave City Hall. But several others remain unanswered.<\/p>\n
NBC4 is continuing to seek answers from the Auditor\u2019s Office and the agencies that could potentially be involved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An investigation into millions of dollars the city of Long Beach spent on homeless service providers has been…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":469930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[131,133,132],"class_list":["post-469929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=469929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/469929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/469930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=469929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=469929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=469929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}