Ex-state worker sentenced for theft

By Curtis Lum
Advertiser Staff Writer

A former state Department of Human Services employee was sentenced yesterday to a year in prison and placed on five years' probation for defrauding the state out of more than $170,000 in welfare benefits.

Circuit Judge Marie Milks also ordered Germaine K. Kam, 36, of Pearl City, to pay about $130,000 in restitution to the state and perform 150 hours of community service.

Kam pleaded guilty in June to two counts of first-degree theft.

Milks yesterday also sentenced Kam's parents, Ernest Jr. and Charlmagne, to five years' probation and ordered each to pay $17,904 for their part in the scheme. The couple pleaded no contest to one count each of first-degree theft.

Deputy Attorney General Rick Damerville said Germaine Kam created 21 fictitious clients and defrauded the state out of about $112,000 between July 1, 1998 and July 31, 1999. Kam withdrew money from ATM machines using electronic benefit transfer cards from the bogus accounts and also used cards from closed cases to obtain cash, Damerville said.

He said Kam also used her position to reopen her parents' case and authorize them to receive benefits. The parents, Damerville said, concealed information about their assets while receiving public assistance.

The Kams used the money to "engage in an unacceptable lifestyle" by purchasing at least three automobiles, he said.

Damerville said he asked that Germaine Kam be sentenced to six months in prison, but Milks ordered her to a year behind bars.

"It's important that any other public employee out there who might be thinking of committing a similar type crime needs to know that if you do this type of crime and breach the public's trust to this degree that you're gonna go to jail," Damerville said. "It was not out of desperation that these people went out and committed these crimes."

Reach Curtis Lum at culum@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8025.