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WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. Westchester County District Attorney Janet DiFiore denied allegations stemming from a published report that she used her position to get her live-in housekeeper welfare benefits.
"I've done nothing wrong in any respect," DiFiore wrote in a statement on the district attorney website. "The person quoted in this illegally leaked email has a well known political agenda that she has been carrying on against me for at least a decade and this appears to be more of the same."
The New York Post reported Tuesday that the county Department of Social Services had been investigating how DiFiore's maid, Marina Buchanan, was approved for welfare benefits after being denied three times before.
"Because of confidentiality of social service records, we wouldn't even confirm whether this person ever got social service benefits," said Donna Greene, deputy communications director for the county. "And if there's an investigation we wouldn't confirm it."
The New York Post report cites a series of internal emails sent from Dhyalma Vazquez, a county anti-fraud investigator and chair of the Yonkers Independence Party, to Kevin McGuire, commissioner of the Department of Social Services. In one email quoted in the report, Vazquez writes this was a "political favor" and that the housekeeper's application was reopened improperly.
"The issue is there are confidentiality rules that apply to people that may or may not be on social services, and rules of confidentiality apply to any investigation, if it does exist," Greene said.
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