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Prosecutors: Man Looted City Account To Buy Porn

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Apr 7, 2007 7:10 pm US/Eastern

Prosecutors: Man Looted City Account To Buy Porn

NEW YORK (CBS/AP) ―

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As investigators leafed through city financial statements, trying to learn how a man managed to steal $3.6 million from a government bank account, they came across another suspicious entry: repeating payments of $49.95 to someone calling himself "John Awesome."

Prosecutors said that Mr. Awesome turned out to be a former city maintenance worker from the Bronx. The payments, they said, turned out to be memberships to two Internet porn sites.

The maintenance man, Duwinn McClelland, was arraigned Saturday on larceny and fraud charges.

The Manhattan District Attorney said McClelland lifted a city bank account number from his workers' compensation checks, then somehow used it to tap into the government fund for his own use.

McClelland is accused of quietly taking $4,000 over about 3 1/2 years, most of it in the form of automatic electronic payments to two sexually explicit Web sites.

Investigators were still trying to sort out whether the episode was related in any way to a larger scam, in which a different man managed to infiltrate the same JPMorgan Chase account to the tune of $3.6 million.

In that case, former social worker Tracy Ball, of Brooklyn, is accused of lavishing stolen funds on jewelry, electronic appliances and expensive personal items.

A judge set a $2,500 bail Saturday for McClelland. Attempts to contact his attorney were not immediately successful. McClelland's telephone number at his Bronx home was unlisted.