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1 month ago
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A greedy DC official earning a six-figure taxpayer-funded salary has been forced to resign after an investigation found she was also making six-figures at Freddie Mac.
Carolina Lian announced on Wednesday she was stepping down from her position as deputy director of the District's Department of Buildings following the city's Board of Ethics and Accountability probe - which determined she violated the code of conduct in four different ways by working both jobs, WUSA reports.
It fined her $25,000 for the violations.
The following day, Lian also announced she was resigning from her elected position as a city councilmember in Northern Virginia.
But she insisted to the Falls Church News-Press she simply made a 'clerical error,' as she called the investigation 'very petty.'
Caroline Lian was forced to step down from her position as deputy director of DC's Department of Buildings following an ethics investigation
The DC government investigation found that Lian started working at the Department of Buildings in October 2022 as its chief operations officer - a position that paid $149,750 each year.
She was promoted one year later to deputy director, the second-highest-ranking official at the Buildings Department - which came with a raise to $175,000 a year.
In her position, she would work in the office Mondays and Fridays, and from home Tuesdays through Thursdays.
But unbeknownst to the government, she had already been working at Freddie Mac - also known as the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. - since 2015.
Lian was a third-party risk management director in the private sector business, working from home Monday and Friday and in the office Tuesdays through Thursdays.
In a third position that the government was aware of, she was elected to serve a four-year term on the Falls Church City Council from 2022 through 2025 - a position that paid $9,200 a year.
The DC Board of Ethics and Accountability found that she did not disclose she was making another six-figure salary from Freddie Mac
But in her required public financial disclosure statements from 2022 and 2023 - on which city employees are required to disclose any outside activity or employment where they make more than $200 - Lian did not report her earnings from Freddie Mac, investigators found.
She did disclose her job on the city council, but recorded her time incorrectly on at least 10 occasions where she said she was working in person at the DC government job but was actually attending city council meetings.
Those included budget meetings she attended in person, as seen on video, on Friday mornings when she was supposed to be at the Department of Buildings, NBC Washington reports.
The probe further discovered that in 2022, Lian underreported her income from the city council - stating she made less than $1,000.
She later submitted an amendment saying she mistakenly chose the wrong category of income.
The Board of Ethics fined her $25,000 for the violations, and the full amount would come from her final district government paycheck or compensation for unused annual leave, according to WUSA.
'I've corrected the form, paid the fine and now I am moving on,' Lian told the News-Press.
In a third position that the DC government was aware of, Lian (second from left) was elected to serve a four-year term on the Falls Church City Council from 2022 through 2025 - a position that paid $9,200 a year
But in the aftermath, Falls Church city officials said they conducted their own investigation and found that Lian only listed Freddie Mac as her employed and 'did not disclose her employment relationship with the District of Columbia,' a spokeswoman for the city said.
City officials then referred the matter to the commonwealth's attorney for investigation, and Lian resigned from her position there as well.
Falls Church Mayor Letty Hardi said on Saturday she 'valued Caroline's service to the community and will miss working with her.
'As a body, we'll continue to be focused on the priorities we've heard from the community,' the mayor told the News-Press, adding that she will make a forthcoming announcement about Lian's vacant city council seat.
In the meantime, though, she urged compassion.
'[Our] city is special because of the people who've committed their time and energy here.
'Let's be kind to each other and lead from a place of positive intent, we're too small of a city to be otherwise.'
Meanwhile, the Arlington County Commonwealth's Attorney told NBC Washington her office is working with local law enforcement to investigate whether Lian committed fraud on her paperwork for the city.
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