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Satanica

Veteran Member
Bold Member!
I hate this shit just as much as those fucking red light cameras. It's not about public safety; it's all about the Benjamins.

http://www.nbcdfw.com/investigation...mera-Program-Sank-DCS-Finances-412623983.html
[....]
DCS (Dallas County Schools) is best known as the agency that operates the school buses for 12 local school districts. This week the agency announced it is more than $40 million behind budget.

In 2012, the agency launched a program to put cameras on school buses to catch drivers who run past school bus stop signs. Each time a car runs past a stopped school bus that has a stop arm extended, DCS sends the owner of the vehicle a ticket in the mail.

DCS promised taxpayers the fines collected from drivers would pay for the millions of dollars worth of camera equipment.
[....]
But in 2014, NBC 5 Investigates first reported the fines collected were lagging way behind the districts projections.
[....]
New records show DCS has collected $19 million in fines, but DCS check records show that since 2010, the agency has spent more than $52 million to pay for the camera program.

The costs ballooned in part because DCS expanded the program way beyond Dallas County.

To take the business statewide, DCS created an unusual partnership with their camera supplier, Force Multiplier Solutions.

DCS signed a deal to pay Force Multiplier $25 million more over time for a technology license. The deal made DCS the only vendor of Force Multiplier Cameras in Texas.

DCS would purchase Force Multiplier equipment and cameras and, in turn, give them to other school districts for free in exchange for a cut of the money collected on the tickets.

But many drivers caught on camera don't pay the fines, and the tickets are sometimes thrown out on appeals.

Monthly reports show DCS has been unable to collect at least $12 million in fines from drivers ticketed across the state.
[....]
At a meeting earlier this week, DCS acknowledged the program is now at least $20 million in the hole.
[....]
Adding to the problems, DCS borrowed millions to purchase the camera equipment. This week, King said the district is teetering on the brink of being unable to make payments on its debt.

NBC 5 Investigates has asked repeatedly to interview superintendent Sorrells. This week he told NBC 5 he cannot talk right now but hopes to be able to do that soon.

And, of course, their immediate go-to solution to this fall-out from their poor decisions is lay-offs. Of course, that never applies to the idiots who made the poor decisions in the first place. They still have their very comfortable salaries.
 
If I won power ball or something I would totally settle this bill. Kids should be able to get to school safely ... until I do though, why not just increased the fine?
 
If I won power ball or something I would totally settle this bill. Kids should be able to get to school safely ... until I do though, why not just increased the fine?

The fine is $300 which seems sufficient to me. The problem is that people are not paying the fines and now DCS is in over its head.
 
The fine is $300 which seems sufficient to me. The problem is that people are not paying the fines and now DCS is in over its head.

I think $300 is okay for the red light cameras ... I think for school busses the fine should be significantly higher ... I also think suspending licences for unpaid fines of this nature is okay!
 
Maybe should have saved a little funding for debt collection?

Oh i know guys that will do that shit for a couple of stones. but on a serious note ... In Canada you get a registered letter ... your licence has been suspended until all money's owed are paid in full.
 
In my state it could keep you from getting your vehicle registered/renewed, and I'm sure it also shows up your credit report but not your driving record.
[doublepost=1486474639,1486151966][/doublepost]And, of course, when it comes right down to it the poor decisions were prompted by corruption and greed.

http://www.nbcdfw.com/investigation...nations-from-Bus-Camera-Vendor-412962453.html
NBC 5 Investigates has obtained records showing Larry Duncan, president of the Dallas County Schools Board of Trustees, accepted more than $200,000 in campaign contributions from people tied to the bus camera company with which DCS partnered on a program that has left the district struggling to pay its bills.

Campaign finance records show since 2012, Duncan received about $245,000 from employees of Force Multiplier Solutions, family members and other associates including the company's chief executive officer, Robert Leonard, who contributed $150,000.

All of Duncan's other campaign donations combined since 2009 totaled only about $8,600.
[....]
 
Brilliant cost them $52 mil and even if they collected every dime of the $31 mil in tickets they are still in the hole $21 mil. Every decision maker involved with this should be made to refund their salaries and be fired. Anyone who runs past a school bus with the arm out should just be shot.
 
There's another thread somewhere about DCS and it's many problems and corruption, but I couldn't find that one.

http://www.fox4news.com/news/voters-to-determine-fate-of-dallas-county-schools-bus-agency
It appears that voters will force the end of Dallas County Schools, the bus agency that provides servicesfor several districts.

With 100 percent of precincts reporting, 42,278902 (about 58 percent of the vote) people voted against Dallas County Schools Proposition A and want to dissolve the agency. About 43 percent of voters are for keeping the bus service.

Once the agency is dissolved, each school district will have to manage their own bus service or hire a private company for kids to continue to be picked up this school year. State Senator Don Huffines says a solution committee would be formed.

The bus agency lost $50 million in a business venture involving onboard cameras and was also involved in a questionable land deal.
[....]
 
One you would think the state should be responsible for safety of children to state schools ??
DCS should have never got in over their head in this

They don't pay the drivers state or city does right ?
they should have spent that money on hireing better social workers and paying better to ones who does the job
They want creditenials up the butt to be a counseler for children and same for social work and teachers but they don't want to pay a decent wage ...
Shame on them for even thinking this was a way to make Money and save children
Stupid just plain. Stupid
 
https://www.nbcdfw.com/investigatio...backs-Paid-to-Top-DCS-Official-466933563.html
Federal prosecutors have filed charges in a months-long investigation into huge financial losses at Dallas County Schools, the troubled busing agency voters elected to shut down earlier this year.

In a criminal complaint filed late Wednesday prosecutors allege a school bus camera company executive paid more than $3 million dollars in bribes and kickbacks to the superintendent in charge of the government agency in exchange for actions on $70 million in government contracts.

The allegations of a criminal conspiracy are detailed in a complaint against Slater Swartwood Sr., a New Orleans businessman who has agreed to plead guilty to money laundering conspiracy charges in connection to the alleged scheme. Under terms of the plea deal Swartwood Sr. has agreed to testify for prosecutors in the case.

The complaint alleges businesses controlled by Swartwood Sr. were used to funnel bribe and kickback payments from the camera company to the superintendent of a state agency in Dallas County.

While the court documents do not name Dallas County Schools, the superintendent or the camera company executive, the circumstances described mirror the situation at DCS which NBC5 Investigates has covered for months,
[....]
The complaint against Swartwood Sr., which describes the camera company executive as “Person A” and the Superintendent as “Person B” says, “During the money laundering conspiracy, Person A paid Person B over $3 million in bribes and kickbacks, including paying a portion of person B's credit card debt and student loan debt arising from his son's college tuition. In return person B acting on behalf of the state agency entered into contracts with company A which resulted in the state agency paying company A over $70 million and incurring significant and ultimately debilitating debt."

As NBC 5 Investigates has previously reported Rick Sorrells was the DCS Superintendent at the time the camera contracts were signed and Robert Leonard was the head of the camera company, Force Multiplier Solutions.
[....]
Neither Sorrells nor Leonard have been charged with any crime. But in the plea deal with Swartwood, prosecutors have now seemingly obtained cooperation from one of Leonard's business associates.

NBC 5 Investigates approached Swartwood Sr. in New Orleans earlier this year last year after uncovering records showing that he received money from a questionable DCS land deal in 2015.

Swartwood Sr. has previously told NBC 5 he did nothing wrong. NBC 5 was unable to reach Swartwood’s attorney for comment on Wednesday night.
[doublepost=1516714700,1514467608][/doublepost]https://www.nbcdfw.com/investigatio...ght-Down-Dallas-County-Schools-470601703.html
As a committee works to shut down the Dallas County Schools agency, officials hit a new roadblock with the failure to locate some of the surveillance cameras that were the root of DCS' financial collapse.

The dissolution committee, formed after voters in November elected to dissolve the century-old agency, sent teams to El Paso and San Antonio last weekend in an attempt to find some of those cameras.
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"They weren't very successful," Alan King, CEO of the committee, said of the search for cameras outside Dallas County.

King said all of the cameras have been accounted for in Dallas County.

But that's not the case, he added, in El Paso and San Antonio, where school districts also reached agreements with DCS to run the program.

"We purchased … 5,800 camera kits. And there's 12 cameras per kit. We don't know where they're all at," King told other committee members.

DCS officials told NBC 5 Investigates the reason for the unaccounted cameras was because the previous administration simply took the word of the vendor that they had actually been delivered.

That vendor is now the focus of an ongoing federal investigation.
[....]
 
Handled by efficient business people who specialized in technology not transportation, it might have been a profitable business model. A bloated bureaucracy is not a good choice to be a speed camera reseller or fine collector.
 
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Their entire operation would've also worked better if the people running it had actually been doing their jobs instead of taking kick-backs from potential vendors.
 
https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/politic...Resignation-Admission-of-Guilt-490503831.html
Dwayne Caraway's legacy in Dallas is tarnished after he admitted to taking bribes of $450,000 in the scandal that led to the shut down of Dallas County Schools.

Caraway began serving on the Dallas City Council in 2007, and stayed in office until 2015 after hitting the term limit.

After taking a two-year break, in which he challenged the seat of Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price and lost, he won back his 4th District seat in 2017 and was named the Mayor Pro Tem.
[....]

Price also needs to go and has been the subject of corruption investigations, but has managed to weasle out of allegations every fucking time. He really is "wily".

https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/l...-2015-speech-motivated-by-bribe/287-582166393
In a 2015 city council meeting, now-resigned Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway gave a passionate endorsement of stop-arm camera technology on the county’s school buses.
[....]
Erin Nealy Cox, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas, made reference to the May 13, 2015 speech Thursday in the announcement of federal corruption charges being brought against Caraway.

WFAA has dug through the city council archives to find video of that speech.

For about six-and-a-half minutes, Caraway expressed an urgency with which the council should renew a program that placed FMS cameras on the sides of school buses to catch motorists who drive past buses with the stop sign extended.

He pointed to political processes “run amok” in Austin, and said that delaying the measure further “runs the risk of not having it at all.”

“I think it is that imperative for us to be able to do everything that we possibly can to make sure that we – today – move this thing forward,” he said.

“People that run past these buses are putting kids and pedestrians at risk.”
[....]
The longtime councilmember’s comments echoed those made earlier in the council session by Dallas County Schools superintendent Ricky Dale Sorrells. Court documents now allege that Sorrells was also on the FMS payroll, receiving more than $3 million in payments in exchange for contracts and licensing agreements.

“[The stop-arm program] does change behavior, and make kids safer, which is what we're attempting to do,” Sorrells told the council. “I think it puts that whole program at risk to delay it.”

The vote to renew the program passed by an 11-1 vote after Caraway’s speech.

Caraway's political action promoting the stop-arm program included a 2012 vote endorsing it, as well as “pressuring the city attorney for a favorable opinion” on the program, according to Nealy Cox. He also used his political position to further Leonard's interest in real estate developments, she said.

The bribes netted FMS more than $70 million in business agreements with Dallas County Schools, which was then thrust into “intolerable levels of debt,” according to Nealy Cox.

Dallas County Schools went bankrupt late last year and was abolished in a November 2017 vote.

https://www.nbcdfw.com/investigatio...-to-Federal-Corruption-Charges-490457291.html
nmc_23carawaycounty04gm.jpg

Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway, the second most powerful official at city hall, is headed to federal prison after admitting to receiving nearly $500,000 in bribes and kickbacks tied to the Dallas County Schools scandal.
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After months of speculation, and an exclusive interview with NBC 5 Investigates in which he admitted to taking money from a Louisiana businessman, Caraway resigned his position at Dallas City Hall in a letter dated Wednesday, and admitted to taking money in exchange for his political influence at City Hall.
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According to his plea deal, the "appropriate" punishment for Caraway is one "that does not exceed seven years, or 84 months, imprisonment." As part of his plea deal that was unsealed Thursday, Caraway will be ordered to also pay nearly $69,000 in restitution to the IRS.
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Leonard faces as much as 10 years in federal prison, court documents show.
 
https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/timeline-history-of-dallas-city-hall-corruption/287-582225833
[....]
In 1997, there was the guilty plea of Council Member Paul Fielding, from North Dallas. Fielding had close ties to a janitorial service and pressured a large company to sign a million-dollar janitorial contract. In exchange, Fielding promised to support the large company in a zoning issue before the city.

In 2000, Council Member Al Lipscomb was convicted of taking bribes from the Yellow Cab Company. In return for $95,000 in payments, Lipscomb was convicted of providing favorable votes. Lipscomb's conviction was later overturned. A judge ruled the trial had improperly been moved out of Dallas County.

The 2008 conviction of Council Member James Fantroy was not about bribery. Federal prosecutors convicted him of embezzling $21,000 dollars from a development fund for Paul Quinn College.

And finally, there were the most-recent city-hall-corruption-cases that ended about 8 years ago...the largest in city history. A housing developer bribed Council Member Don Hill with $215,000 dollars. In exchange for the money, Hill voted for the developer's project in South Dallas.

In this most recent case, against Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway, he admitted to taking $450,000 in bribes. But there won't be a trail because he made a plea deal with prosecutors.
 
According to his plea deal, the "appropriate" punishment for Caraway is one "that does not exceed seven years, or 84 months, imprisonment." As part of his plea deal that was unsealed Thursday, Caraway will be ordered to also pay nearly $69,000 in restitution to the IRS.
[....]
Leonard faces as much as 10 years in federal prison, court documents show.


https://www.nbcdfw.com/investigatio...-to-Federal-Corruption-Charges-490457291.html

What about a fine equal to the amount that he took in bribes?
 
http://www.fox4news.com/news/dallas...anagers-in-troubled-transportation-department
After starting the school year with hundreds of bus driver positions needing to be filled, there are more transportation troubles for Dallas ISD.

The district cleaned house at the transportation department by firing five top-level managers. It happened while the district is still struggling to get routes fixed and students to school on time.

Dallas ISD has faced numerous setbacks since starting its own busing system this year. Dozens of drivers didn't show up for the first day of school and the man in charge of transportation left for another job.

“In order to get things more in line with what our expectations are, changes needed to take place at the leadership level,” said DISD Deputy Superintendent Scott Layne.

The now-fired managers oversaw personnel and routes. They were hired from Dallas County Schools after voters shut down the troubled bus operator. DISD is one of 12 school districts forced to come up with their own busing solutions.

“Bear in mind that we had to hire over 1,000 people in a six-month period,” Layne said. “So there really wasn't any real options for us at that point to hire that many people.”

The district is still short dozens of bus drivers, forcing DISD to consolidate 74 routes. Some full-time drivers are doing doubles routes, meaning means students on those buses are often late to class.

Rena Honea is the president of Alliance-AFT, the union that represents non-administrative DISD employees, which includes the bus drivers and monitors.

“We have to have strong leadership. It needs to come quickly because our kids depend on it. The parents are depending on it,” Honea said. “It's something that voters said, ‘We don't like what's happening now so let's fix it.’ And it’s taking quite a bit of time to do that.”

But the district says its making progress. Substitute drivers are handling many of the 61 open routes while 85 new bus drivers who were hired at job fairs are in the process of getting trained.

As for those open management spots?

“We have people below them who have stepped up,” Layne said.

Thirty new bus drivers are scheduled to start next week. The district says its making allowances for students who arrive late due to bussing problems. The hope is to have the system fully operational by Thanksgiving.
 
https://www.nbcdfw.com/investigatio...n-Hollywood----At-Your-Expense-498585321.html
Robert+Leonard.jpg

In the glittering sun of Santa Monica, Robert Leonard, owner of a school bus camera company, lived a second life.

While Leonard bribed Dallas public officials in exchange for government contracts, he also rented high-priced properties, placing him among Hollywood’s elite, on the palm-lined streets of Southern California.

It was there that Realtor Baron Bruno remembers meeting Leonard, who he described as, “Cartoon character-ish. Bald. High energy. Somewhat frantic.”

Bruno said Leonard called in 2014 about renting a condo in a luxurious building in Santa Monica, overlooking the ocean and the Pacific Coast Highway.

The rental fee, according to a real estate listing, was more than $8,000 a month. It’s one of several luxury retreats where Leonard spent time in Santa Monica, between 2014 and 2016, at a time when his company was collecting millions of North Texas tax dollars in contracts with Dallas County Schools.

Those contracts, Leonard now admits, were obtained by paying off Dallas officials.

Neighbors also remember Leonard staying in a $15,000-per-month mansion, and renting two apartments and an office on a hillside building, with sweeping views of the coast.

Those who knew of his doings in California also remember Leonard often staying at the famed Beverly Wilshire Hotel, while he spent thousands of dollars renovating the Santa Monica apartments and office, despite not owning them.

But what they remember most was Leonard’s Rolls Royce.

Each of Leonard’s West Coast addresses placed him in neighborhoods among the stars, including, neighbors said, actors Michael Keaton and Albert Brooks.

Leonard’s luxurious digs also included an ocean-side high-rise in a building where the penthouse was once owned by late actor Larry Hagman, who played the villain J.R. Ewing in the TV series, “Dallas.”
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“The money that is in Robert Leonard’s pocket is money that needs to be transferred to the pocket of the Dallas taxpayers,” said Stephanie Curtis, the lawyer for the state-appointed committee in charge of shutting down Dallas County Schools.

The agency wound up nearly bankrupt from bad business deals with Leonard’s camera company, Force Multiplier Solutions.

In a plea agreement in federal court, Leonard admitted he was able to carry out those deals by bribing DCS Superintendent Rick Sorrells and Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway, both of whom have stepped down, pleaded guilty to federal charges and are now facing time in prison.

On behalf of DCS, Curtis is suing Leonard and others, trying to recover millions of taxpayer dollars.

“We know where his assets are,” she said, adding, “We are continuing to uncover streams of revenue every day, and are taking measures through the court system to take advantage of those early seizure opportunities.”

In addition to his West Coast retreats, Leonard owned an expensive Dallas home, on a private lake, and kept a luxury apartment in New Orleans.

Today, he still owns a mansion in a New Orleans suburb.

Leonard declined an interview with NBC 5 Investigates. His attorney said his earnings did not just come from DCS, but from business transactions with other school districts where, according to the lawyer, there were no questions of impropriety.

NBC 5 Investigates has learned, from records and in interviews, that Leonard was seeking to win government contracts in California to put cameras on school buses, as well as on transit buses in downtown Los Angeles.

The records show Leonard’s company met with the Los Angeles Department of Transportation in 2015, but never signed a deal.

But the money continued to flow from Dallas to the Hollywood Hills, with Leonard sometimes invoicing DCS for cameras, using a Santa Monica address and a different corporate name, “RPI Inc.”
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A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced ex-DCS school board president Larry Duncan to three years of probation (including six months of home confinement) and community service. He was also ordered to pay back taxes, including interest.

Duncan pleaded guilty last year to tax evasion after taking a quarter million dollars in bribes from a company that put expensive stop-arm cameras on school buses. Federal prosecutors said he spent most of the money on personal items and failed to report it to the IRS.
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Last week, former Dallas City Councilman Dwaine Caraway got four years for his role in the same scheme. Duncan was eligible for up to five years in prison.

But Duncan’s lawyer tried to distance him from the other players convicted in the case, saying his illegal involvement didn’t include abuse of a public service position.

The scandal ultimately led to the end of DCS, which provided bus service to several school districts around Dallas.
http://www.fox4news.com/news/former...nced-in-dallas-county-schools-corruption-case
 
As he awaits his sentencing, just the mention of Robert Leonard, a central player in a scandal that rocked Dallas City Hall and killed a once-reputable school agency, continues to stir the anger from the people hurt by corruption.
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Others who lost their jobs with the demise of DCS had these choice words for Leonard: "He destroyed it"…"He took it down" …"He was the poison."

The Louisiana businessman must hope such vitriol doesn't reach the ears of U.S. District Judge Barbara Lynn, who is scheduled on Wednesday to sentence him to as much as 10 years in federal prison for his role in the DCS scandal.

Several former DCS managers, in a group interview with NBC 5 Investigates, said they believe the punishment should be harsher for Leonard after he admitted paying millions of dollars in bribes to former DCS superintendent Rick Sorrells, and nearly a half-million dollars to Dwaine Caraway, Dallas' mayor pro tem at the time.

Caraway is in prison, and Sorrells is destined for prison, after both pleaded guilty to taking those bribes as part of a conspiracy that brought tens of millions of dollars in school bus camera contracts to Leonard's company.

It also cost taxpayers more than $100 million, spelled financial disaster for DCS, and ignited a voters revolt that elected to shut it down.

"I really think 20 years …for all the heartache that he's caused the people of Dallas County Schools," said Mike Williams, a former DCS transportation director who had been with the agency for 17 years.

"Life without parole and a reimbursement. He should be broke," added Tim Jones, a 20-year DCS veteran who had been director of special projects.

They all agreed Leonard was responsible for the crisis that left them and hundreds of their co-workers without jobs.
[....]
They blamed Leonard for convincing their bosses to buy into an onboard surveillance camera program that was supposed to make money from the issuance of traffic tickets.

Instead, it tanked DCS' finances.

And they questioned his involvement in a DCS land deal where taxpayer-owned bus lots were sold, then leased back at taxpayer expense, in a failed attempt to bail out the agency.

One of Leonard's closest associates collected more than $750,000 in that deal – an associate who later admitted he helped Leonard pay the bribes.

In response to the group's comments, Leonard's attorney said in a statement, "…their opinions are inconsistent with the objective tangible evidence in this case."
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In his own statements to NBC 5 Investigates in the past two years, Leonard denied that he is to blame for financial troubles at DCS.

Instead, he said it was DCS officials who mismanaged the bus camera program.
[....]
The lawyer also wrote off Leonard's once lavish lifestyle – chauffeur-driven Bentleys, fancy homes throughout the country, a French Quarter retreat in New Orleans – as the rewards of simply being good in business.
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https://www.nbcdfw.com/investigatio...-for-Sentencing-in-DCS-Scandal-509933161.html
 
[....]
Rick Sorrells, the disgraced former superintendent of Dallas County Schools, will be sentenced to federal prison Wednesday for his role in the corruption scandal that destroyed the 172-year-old school bus agency in November 2017.

Sorrells, an admitted criminal, is facing up to 10 years behind bars for wire fraud after admitting to the Department of Justice to receiving more than $3 million in bribes.
full

The DOJ said Sorrells spent the bribe money on credit card debt, trips, personal expenses, an apartment in New Orleans, cars and jewelry. In return for those payments, the DOJ said DCS purchased cameras worth millions of dollars, stacks of which remained boxed and unused in a Dallas warehouse, and entered into a $25 million asset purchase/licensing agreement, the sale-leaseback of DCS bus lots first reported on by NBC 5 Investigates.

Federal prosecutors said bribes and kickbacks paid to Sorrells were funneled through various pass-through companies operated by, Slater Swartwood Sr., and an unnamed law firm. Swartwood Sr. pleaded guilty to federal money laundering conspiracy charges in December 2018 and was sentenced last month to 18 months behind bars.

The man behind the camera company, and the bribes, Robert Leonard, was sentenced to seven years in federal prison in May.

As a part of his plea, Sorrells was ordered to forfeit any property bought using the payments received from the unnamed company. A list of that property included more than $12,000 in cash, a 2014 Maserati GHI, a 2012 Porsche Cayenne, about $50,000 in jewelry purchased from the Windsor Auction House and a custom made 14K bracelet set with 51 princess cut diamonds weighing 10.53 carats and valued at more than $16,000.

 
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