The Cleveland Plain-Dealer reported that one of the city's nonprofit Head Start programs padded its rosters with sixty fictitious children in order to receive an additional $250,000 in funding. Eight employees told state and federal officials that the fraud was encouraged by the day care association's board of trustees, all of whom were local ministers. The ministers responded by suing the employees for character defamation. In a letter, the association informed investigators that records documenting services it provided to approximately 1,600 children in 1997 had been lost, destroyed, or stolen.

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