State employee indicted for wage fraud

A Colonie man employed at the state Office of Information Technology Services was indicted today on charges of stealing more than $38,000 from the state by charging time for when he wasn’t at work, Attorney General Eric Schneiderman announced Tuesday.

Wajahat Abbasi, 37, is accused of not being at work for significant periods of time on 53 separate occasions. But he collected pay for working during those periods from January 2013 to December 2014, according to Schneiderman’s office. He is also alleged to have sold more than $219,000 in counterfeit cell phone cases.

Schneiderman said Abbasi has been charged with 57 felony counts including grand larceny and trademark counterfeiting. He faces up to 15 years in state prison.

“Those who serve the public must be held to high ethical standards, and when individuals abuse the trust placed in them, there must be consequences,” Schneiderman said in a statement. “When public employees fail to work the hours for which they are paid, they steal from taxpayers and deprive the public of services they expect.”

Abbasi was employed at the state Office of Information Technology Services (ITS) as a computer programmer at the Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance on North Pearl Street in Albany. He was also running a series of businesses that sold technology equipment on Ebay and Amazon, Schnedierman said.