Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., continued to pay a computer expert who was accused of stealing computers and data systems in February, the Miami Herald reported Wednesday.
She fired Imran Awan on Tuesday after he was arrested on bank-fraud charges, but has not explained why she retained him or what kind of work he did for her.
"After details of the investigation were reviewed with us, my office was provided no evidence to indicate that laws had been broken, which over time, raised troubling concerns about due process, fair treatment, and potential ethnic and religious profiling," she said in a statement provided to the Herald. "Upon learning of his arrest, he was terminated."
Awan, 37, and four other IT staffers were accused of theft in February. They were employed by more than two dozen Democrats in Congress, but Wasserman Schultz was the only lawmaker who kept him on.
"He was terminated as soon as we learned about the allegations of wrongdoing," said Joyce Jones, the spokeswoman for Rep. Frederica Wilson, D-Fla., who paid Awan $1,166 for work in 2017. "His official termination date was Feb. 2, 2017."
Awan pleaded not guilty to the bank-fraud charges and was released into a high-intensity supervision program.
"Mr. Awan's family is presently staying with extended family in Pakistan, because he and his wife were both abruptly and unjustly fired, leaving them without a reliable source of income to pay typical U.S. living expenses, and because extremist right-wing bloggers were beginning to harass them and their children — even going to their children's schools," said his lawyer, Chris Gowen.
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