Investigators Look for Favoritism in Justice Department Grants

"We had practically perfect [peer review] scores," Vieth said. "Anybody who's in this field, you're not in it for the money or the glory. You're in it to help children."

Flores has pointed out that the peer review was advisory only and that he and his staff had authority to make their own selections and carve out grant categories and priorities as they saw fit.

"Mr. Flores's decisions with respect to the grant-making process were made consistent with the law and departmental discretion," said Elliot S. Berke, his attorney.

Sources said this week that the inspector general also is looking into Flores's hiring of a contract employee to a well-paying job. The inquiry centers on how much work the contractor actually performed for the Justice Department, the sources said.

At the same time, the Project on Government Oversight (POGO), a watchdog group, McCaskill and current and former Justice Department employees have raised questions about the prestigious Byrne grant program, which dispatches a huge amount of money each year to groups that battle crime.

One source said that staff members in the Bureau of Justice Assistance, which oversees the Byrne grants, last year plucked some applications from other categories in a rush to find enough recipients for grants that target violent crime. The winners were awarded Byrne grants and given extra financial incentives in the form of a 10 percent "information sharing enhancement," according to an Aug. 27, 2007, memo by Domingo S. Herraiz, who leads the bureau.

Herraiz said in the "revised" funding recommendation memo that the unit had received 128 applications, 106 of which were "subsequently externally peer reviewed."

One of the applications that did not undergo such review was a $296,168 award to the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services for an anti-gang initiative in the city of Columbus, according to the documents, which were obtained by POGO.

Prior to his Senate confirmation in 2004, Herraiz had served as director of the Ohio agency.

Lindsay Komlanc, a spokeswoman for the Ohio Department of Public Safety, said the office followed "our same standard procedure" in applying for the award and did not receive special treatment "that we're aware of."

Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr said the Ohio project was recommended by career staff members and that Herraiz recused himself from final decision-making.

Separately, POGO and Justice employees are raising questions about another award, in which the Fraternal Order of Police of Ohio received $603,000 in Byrne crime prevention money for the "Ohio school alert system." The Ohio chapter, which did not return phone calls for comment, supported Herraiz's bid for the Justice Department job four years ago, according to sources familiar with the process.