Tax dollars going "down the drain"

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) - Full transcript of the Target 12 Investigators two-month investigation into the Providence sewer department, showing your tax dollars going "down the drain."

In part one , we showed you sewer workers using city equipment for personal gain. Now, we track down their boss taking a city truck to a place he was told not to visit.

Tim White: "Have you received any complaints in your personnel file for taking the truck to that location?"
Algot Abrahamson: "Yes I have once. He told me don't take the city truck there. I never did again."
Tim White: "Well, no. Clearly you did do it again."

It’s against policy to use city trucks for personal use. But the Target 12 undercover unit caught city workers doing just that - not just once - but several times; even using city equipment to work on a foreman's home.

We wanted to know, who's watching the hen house?

His name is Algot Abrahamson. Public records list him as the supervisor for the city sewer department.

When Target 12 went undercover - tracking the movements of his workers , we rarely saw Abrahamson leave the department of public works yard. Until this Tuesday morning.

We followed Abrahamson in his city truck - here - Decatur Square, Federal Hill in Providence.

Our cameras rolling as Abrahamson walks into the non-descript building on Carpenter Street. While we wait, we catch this activity:

A man exits the building, hands over a wad of cash to someone waiting in a car.

Many people arrive, give a knock on the heavily dead-bolted door and it swings outward.

Then minutes later, they leave.

Again the "money man" re-appears, reviews a slip of paper and hands over more cash.

We show our surveillance to Lt. Colonel Stephen O'Donnell, a veteran organized crime investigator for the Rhode Island State Police.

Tim White: Is this a place you would go and have lunch?

O'Donnell: No.

It's called the Decatur social club and Colonel O'Donnell knows it well.

Years ago, he was involved in an undercover operation that ended in a state police dragnet, cracking down on illegal sports betting.

"It's been a gambling mecca. Organized illegal gambling," O'Donnell said.

He said our video is consistent with bookmaking.

We tell O'Donnell the video was taken on a Tuesday morning, after a Monday night football game.

"Tuesday morning is 'square up' day," O'Donnell said. "What I mean by 'square up' day is people that owe money or have money owed to them, get paid or have to pay."

We wanted to know what the supervisor of the city sewer department was doing here in a city truck, while on the clock. So we paid him a visit at the DPW yard.

Tim White: "Where you going in to square up. Were you gambling in there?"

Algot Abrahamson: "No, I don't. I might have went in there to buy coffee. I buy cups of coffee sometimes. I have a coffee machine at home, he sells cups. That's it. I do not gamble."

Tim White: "You know the history of that place."

Algot Abrahamson: "Hmm. History as far as what?"

Tim White: "According to the State Police, it's been raided several times for organized criminal gambling."

Algot Abrahamson: "I have no knowledge of that. I've never seen anything wrong up there."

Abrahamson changes that answer after we tell him what our cameras caught - money changing hands, right before his eyes.

You can actually see Abrahamson, right here, as a transaction goes down.

Tim White: "So you have no idea that that place is a gambling institution?"

Algot Abrahamson: "I know once it got raided, yes. For what I have no knowledge. I wasn't in that place."

The Decatur Social Club is a place Abrahamson shouldn't be in a city truck. Abrahamson admits, he was told by the DPW director not to be seen there again.

Tim White: "Have you received any complaints in your personnel file for taking a city truck to that location?"

Algot Abrahamson: "Yes I have once. He told me don't take the city truck there. I never did again."

Tim White: "Well, no. Clearly you did do it again."

Algot Abrahamson: "I stopped there for 8 minutes. Obviously, I did go there, but it's to buy the coffee cups."

But take a close look at our video. Abrahamson's hands are empty. No coffee cups here.

Algot Abrahamson: "To stop in there for 8 minutes at 11 o'clock in the morning. I personally don't think there is anything wrong with that."

Abrahamson has not been disciplined but two of his workers have been suspended without pay, based on our findings in part one.

And late Thursday afternoon we learned about a possible criminal investigation into the improper use of a city backhoe.

Those details and reaction from the mayor Friday night on Eyewitness News at 6.