Ex-PHA chief Greene slapped with $1,500 ethics fine

CARL GREENE, the disgraced former executive director of the Philadelphia Housing Authority, has fled to Georgia, but he hasn't outrun his problems.

This week, the Pennsylvania State Ethics Commission slapped him with a $1,500 fine for failing to file proper financial-disclosure forms during his years at the agency's helm.

Under the state Ethics Act, public officials must disclose all sources of income and report any liens levied by creditors.

Greene, fired from PHA in September 2010, and now living in the Atlanta area, failed to file financial-disclosure forms in 2007, 2008 and 2009. He filed incomplete financial forms - failing to disclose income - in 2004, 2005 and 2006, the commission ruled yesterday.

"We are looking into this and expect to get it straightened out," Greene's attorney, Clifford Haines, said yesterday. "I wouldn't read anything nefarious into this."

Besides the fine, the commission ordered Greene to file complete and accurate forms within 30 days.

Greene's financial troubles surfaced in 2010, after the IRS filed a $52,000 tax lien against him for his failure to pay taxes on "small business/self-employed" income for 2002, 2003, 2005 and 2006. Greene paid off the federal tax lien about three months later, but subsequently stopped making mortgage payments on his $615,000 Naval Square townhouse. At the time, Greene was earning more than $300,000 a year from PHA.

PHA's Board of Commissioners fired Greene, dubbing him a "serial sexual harasser," for secretly settling three harassment complaints for $648,000. Greene is suing the PHA board in federal court, claiming he was wrongly terminated.