Greedy DC official earning six-figure taxpayer-funded salary is forced to resign after moonlighting for Freddie Mac

A greedy Washington DC government employee who earns a six-figure taxpayer-funded salary has been forced to resign after an investigation revealed she also earned six figures at Freddie Mac.

Carolina Lian announced Wednesday that she is stepping down as deputy director of the county’s Buildings Department following an investigation by the city’s Ethics and Accountability Board that found she violated the code of conduct on four separate counts while holding both jobs. WUSA reports.

For these violations, she was fined $25,000.

The next day, Lian also announced that she would resign as a Northern Virginia city councilwoman.

But they urged the Falls Church News-Press She simply made an “administrative error” and called the investigation “very petty.”

The DC Government Investigation found that Lian joined the Buildings Department in October 2022 as Chief Operations Officer, a position that paid $149,750 per year.

A year later, she was promoted to deputy director, the second-highest ranking official in the Buildings Department, which brought a salary increase of $175,000 a year.

In her position, she worked in the office on Mondays and Fridays and from home from Tuesdays to Thursdays.

But unbeknownst to the government, she had been working at Freddie Mac, also known as Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp., since 2015.

Lian was a director of third-party risk management in the private sector. He worked from home Monday through Friday and in the office from Tuesday through Thursday.

In a third position that the government was aware of, she was elected to a four-year term on the Falls Church City Council, from 2022 to 2025. She was paid $9,200 a year for this position.

The DC Board of Ethics and Accountability found she failed to disclose she was earning another six-figure salary at Freddie Mac

But in her mandatory 2022 and 2023 public financial disclosure statements — in which city officials must list any side hustles or jobs that earn her more than $200 — Lian failed to report her Freddie Mac income, investigators found.

She did advertise her job with the City Council, but she misreported her hours at least a dozen times. She said she was physically at work in Washington state government, but was actually present at City Council meetings.

These included the budget meetings she attended in person, as seen on video, on Friday morning when she should have been at the Buildings Department, NBC Washington reports.

The investigation further found that Lian had underreported her income to the city council in 2022: she earned less than $1,000.

She later filed an amendment stating that she had accidentally chosen the wrong income category.

According to WUSA, the Board of Ethics fined her $25,000 for the violations, with the full amount to be withheld from her final government paycheck or compensation for unused vacation days.

“I amended the form, paid the fine and now I’m moving on,” Lian told the News-Press.

In a third position that the D.C. government was aware of, Lian (second from left) was elected to a four-year term on the Falls Church City Council from 2022 through 2025 — a position that paid $9,200 a year.

Falls Church city officials said afterward that they conducted their own investigation and found that Lian had only listed Freddie Mac as an employee and “had not disclosed her employment relationship with the District of Columbia,” a city spokeswoman said.

City officials subsequently referred the case to the district attorney for investigation, after which Lian also resigned.

Falls Church Mayor Letty Hardi said Saturday that she “appreciates Caroline’s dedication to the community and will miss working with her.

“As a whole, we will continue to focus on the priorities we have heard from the community,” the mayor said. told the News-Press, She added that she will make an announcement soon regarding Lian’s vacant seat on the city council.

Meanwhile, she called for compassion.

‘[Our] The city is so special because of the people who have invested their time and energy here.

“Let’s be kind to each other and lead with positive intent. We’re too small a city to be different.”

Meanwhile, the Arlington County district attorney told NBC Washington that her office is working with local police to investigate whether Lian committed fraud on her city documents.