The Fiscal Times’ Eric Pianin is reporting that the Justice Department is investigating dozens of claims of “false statements, bid rigging, fraud and embezzlement” stemming from Obama stimulus funds used in federal highway and transportation projects:

In what is shaping up as another troubled chapter in the saga of the Obama Administration’s economic stimulus program, the Justice Department is investigating whether billions of dollars worth of federal highway and transportation programs are rife with fraud and abuse.
About $48 billion of the $825 billion authorized by Congress and the administration under the 2009 American Recovery & Reinvestment Act (ARRA) went to support existing highway and transit infrastructure projects, like the massive Fulton Street Transit Center project in lower Manhattan. Eighty-eight percent of those funds have been spent, and nearly 80 percent of the projects have been completed as part of the government’s efforts to create new jobs.
But federal investigators have uncovered widespread financial management problems with many of the projects. As of early March, federal authorities were investigating 66 cases of alleged false statements, bid rigging, fraud and embezzlement, according to a report by Calvin L. Scovel III, the Department of Transportation’s inspector general. Justice Department lawyers are scouring 47 of those cases for potential prosecution, according to Scovel.
Twenty-five of those cases involve alleged fraud by minority-owned or operated enterprises that received preferential treatment in the awarding of the contracts, while 22 involve allegations of false claims. Investigators are also looking into nine cases of alleged violations of the prevailing wage law, three involving corruption and one case involving embezzlement, according to a report Scovel presented to the House transportation appropriations subcommittee on March 29. A spokesman for Scovel’s office declined to provide further details of the ongoing investigation, but stressed, “We take very seriously any allegations of waste, fraud, abuse or violations of the law.”