Is there some blame to share here?

The St. Pete Times reports that the former owner of something called the Academy of Dreams represented herself as the owner of something called the Sago Palm Educational Academy in a request for grant money to teach water conservation techniques. The whole story is here: http://www.tampabay.com/news/publicsafety/tampa-woman-accused-of-fraud-in-grant-application-to-teach-water/1129476

There apparently is no Sago Palm Educational Academy, and the Academy of Dreams apparently no longer exists, which qualified the former owner for a visit from the law, which charged her with grand theft, scheme to defraud, communications fraud and criminal use of personal identification information.

Her offense: Succeeding in persuading someone at the Southwest Florida Water Management District to stroke her a check for $8,000 last month.

Now I’m not going to defend this former owner, or even applaud her creativity. I am, however, going to suggest that before we send her off to the pokey, we investigate the bright light or lights at Swiftmud who signed off on her application and presumably put it in the pile that went to another bright light for final approval and the cash prize.

The Times reported that the same former owner was charged with similar offenses in May when it was discovered that the state Department of Education had given her more than $300,000 she wasn’t entitled to.

Elnuestros is reminded of that old public service commercial designed to thwart juvenile delinquency and car thefts, the one that suggested we “Don’t Help a Good Boy Go Bad” by leaving our keys in our unlocked cars, and threatened us with charges of contributing to delinquency if we did.

Shouldn’t the bureaucrats who were too overburdened to do the most cursory investigation of her applications be held to a similar standard?