City workers accused of falsifying documents

Fake employee credentials have been created, sold and approved at Atlanta City Hall, FOX 5 News has learned. The result is that many employees are on the taxpayer payroll without the required qualifications.

FOX 5 has learned that numerous city job applicants have been able to buy a required document that they didn't legitimately earn. An educational diploma known as a GED could be bought for as much as $400.

Top city officials declined to appear to on camera but did confirm that they are investigating the scam an inside job, FOX 5's Morse Diggs reports.

So far, the investigation has revealed that the majority of fake documents were sold to sanitation workers. But public works is not the only city department involved, according to sources involved in the probe.

City investigators have called in workers from field offices to take statements. The scheme is said to be multilayered; the checks and balances from the resources department were defeated because one city employee would create the fake diploma and another administrator would then verify the document as being good.

An unknown number of workers have been put on the payroll.

"It's shocking and quite frankly, it's one of these things that completely erode the trust of the citizens and the taxpayers of the city of Atlanta," said William Perry of Common Cause Georgia, a watchdog group.

Sources said the allegations came to light from an anonymous call to the city's integrity office.  It as an administrative investigation right now but the Atlanta Police Department will be brought in as falsifying a government document is a felony.