statementofrutha.ritzema.docVIP

STATEMENT OF RUTH A. RITZEMA Special Agent in Charge New York Field Office Office of the Inspector General U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development BEFORE THE HOUSE COMMITTEE ON HOMELAND SECURITY, SUBCOMMITTEE ON MANAGEMENT, INTEGRATIONAND OVERSIGHT UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES JULY 13, 2006  Statement of Ruth Ritzema Special Agent in Charge, New York Field Office Office of the Inspector General Department of Housing and Urban Development Before the House Committee on Homeland Security, Subcommittee on Management, Integration, and Oversight Chairman Rogers, Ranking Member Meek, members of the Subcommittee; thank you for inviting me to testify today on the lessons learned after the events of September 11, 2001. Although this hearing is about the oversight efforts in fraud detection, prevention and control, which I will elaborate in great detail on, I wanted to start off my testimony by quickly sharing with you how the events of that day directly and intimately impacted me. Events of September 11th The Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Inspector General (HUD OIG) Office of Investigations, of which I am the Special Agent in Charge, was at 6 World Trade Center. It housed approximately thirty-five HUD OIG employees – special agents, forensic auditors and support staff. On that morning, fortuitously, our New York City special agents were out of the office at a quarterly firearms qualification. Unfortunately, our forensic auditors and support staff were on site when the first plane hit the North Tower, which was adjacent to our office. All of the auditors and support staff in the building heard the explosion and one of our secretaries, who saw pieces of the plane and building fall, immediately told everyone to evacuate prior to any alarms going off. They fled across the street near the financial district where they watched the building burn. The group became separated when the second plane went into t