Oops: Impostor scams Louisiana officials

POSTED: 5:53 p.m. EDT, August 28, 2006

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KENNER, Louisiana (CNN) -- Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin each thanked the man -- identified as a federal housing representative -- who followed them to the lectern Monday to announce a major reversal in policy.

But the well-dressed, well-spoken man calling himself Rene Oswin, assistant deputy secretary for the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, turned out to be an impostor who was part of a weeks-long hoax.

After the speaker read from a text he said had been prepared by his boss, HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson, a HUD spokeswoman said the department knew nothing about the man.

"Everything is going to change about the way we work, and the change is going to start here today in New Orleans," the man said during his speech.

Jackson, he said, had had to cancel his appearance at the meeting of 1,000 builders and contractors at the Pontchartrain Center in Kenner because he had to stay in Washington to meet with President Bush.

William Loiry, president of meeting sponsor Equity International, said he was duped.

"We were contacted about a week ago or so by someone who we believed to be [public relations firm] Hill & Knowlton [saying] that they were representing the HUD secretary and that he wanted to make a major announcement at this summit.

"Of course, we know Hill and Knowlton and know they're a reputable firm. We agreed to that."

Loiry said he was told a few minutes before he had planned to introduce Jackson that the secretary would be replaced by Oswin.

"We've done 75 national conferences, 25,000 people participated, and we certainly never encountered anything like this before," he said.

The man left a flier bearing a HUD emblem that said attendees could go Monday afternoon to a ribbon-cutting ceremony at a public housing project. A free lunch and transportation aboard buses were promised.

"They never materialized," Loiry said.

In his speech, the man who called himself Oswin said HUD had planned to demolish 5,000 units "of perfectly good public housing," even though housing in the city is in tight supply. Nearly all of the units -- many of them built on high ground -- had emerged unscathed from Katrina, he said.

Former occupants have been "begging to move back in," he said. "We're going to help them to do that."

The government's practice had been to tear down public housing where it could, because such projects were thought to cause crime and unemployment, he said.

But crime rates in the city are at a record high and there is no evidence that people in the projects are more likely to be unemployed, he said. "These were real communities, not the crime-ridden 'hood."

The man added that opening doors to public housing would not be enough, but that it also would be essential to create conditions for prosperity.

Toward that end, he said, Wal-Mart would withdraw its stores from near low-income housing and "help nurture local businesses to replace them."

The man added that the federal government would spend $180 million to fund "at least one well-equipped public health clinic for every housing development."

And the feds would reverse plans to replace public schools with private and charter schools, and instead create a national tax base to supplement local taxes.

"With your help, the prospects of New Orleanians will no longer depend on their birthplace, and the cycle of poverty will come to an end," he said.

Finally, to ensure another hurricane does not inundate the city, Exxon and Shell have promised to spend $8.6 billion "to finance wetlands rebuilding from $60 billion in profits this year," he said.

In Washington, HUD spokeswoman Donna White called the hoax "sick."

"This announcement is totally false; it's totally bogus," said Donna White in Washington. "We're trying to track it down."

No one named Rene Oswin works for the department, she said. "I'm like, who the heck is that?"

Jackson, White said, had never planned to address the meeting. "It's really a sick, twisted -- I don't even want to refer to it as a joke," White said. "At this point, it's not funny."

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