Washington, D.C., Deputy Mayor of Public Safety and Justice Lindsey Appiah told lawmakers that D.C. has completed a review of violence-intervention grants and contracts amid bribery allegations against D.C. Council member Trayon White Sr. (D-Ward 8) — and did not find evidence of wrongdoing. Appiah appeared before council member Brooke Pinto’s public safety committee as part of a hearing probing how the Office of Neighborhood Safety and Engagement (ONSE) awards lucrative grants and whether oversight needs to be strengthened. The hearing was prompted by allegations that White took bribes to pressure city officials to extend an associate’s violence-intervention contracts at ONSE, sparking broader concerns abut the impact on the agency, reports the Washington Post. Appiah told Pinto, "..There’s no finding of illegality or findings of rampant misuse or abuse or malfeasance by ONSE or others” Appiah said the report made recommendations to strengthen grant management at the agency, building on major changes Appiah and ONSE interim director Kwelli Sneed said they made to bolster the staffing infrastructure.
Those changes will allow the agency to strengthen performance monitoring and oversight of violence intervention grantees, they said — something critics said has been missing for too long. In violence intervention, employees known as “violence interrupters” seek to defuse neighborhood conflicts, many work long, unpredictable hours in stressful, oftentimes dangerous environments. Pinto said the programs are in serious need of “much more oversight and a stronger adherence to consistency and best practices,” to ensure the violence interrupters are effective. “Millions of taxpayer dollars are at stake with these programs, and even more pressing, residents’ lives,” Pinto said. “These allegations also highlight for me the need for the executive to devote much more time and attention to the office, which has been without a permanent director for almost a year and a half now.” The informant who allegedly bribed White was Allieu Kamara, the founder of Life Deeds, a company that had multiple agreements with ONSE to perform violence-intervention work.
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