Like a fire-and-brimstone preacher, a federal judge dressed down a local pastor and former Columbus Urban League official yesterday before sentencing him to 31/2 years in prison for stealing more than $85,000 from the league. U.S. District Judge Algenon L. Marbley chastised defendant Ovell K. Harrison for undermining the Urban League and filling his own pockets for seven years with money that should have gone to those in need of housing, child...

USAO Southern District of Ohio FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE FRIDAY, JANUARY 17, 2014 http://www.justice.gov/usao/ohs COLUMBUS – Ovell K. Harrison, 55, of Columbus, Ohio was sentenced in U.S. District Court to 42 months in prison and ordered to pay $85,181.25 in restitution for fraud and identity theft he committed while Director of Education Services at the Columbus Urban League between 2004 and 2010. Carter M. Stewart, U.S. Attorney for the...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE JANUARY 16, 2014 FORMER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF TAOS COUNTY HOUSING AUTHORITY SENTENCED TO THIRTY MONTHS IN PRISON FOR CONSPIRACY TO STEAL FEDERAL FUNDS Husband/Co-Conspirator Sentenced to Twenty-Four Months in Prison Couple Also Ordered to Pay $786,014.04 in Restitution ALBUQUERQUE – Earlier today a federal judge sentenced the former executive director of the Taos County Housing Authority (TCHA) and her husband to...

For Immediate Release Contact:  HUD OIG Public Affairs [email protected] On August 8, 2013, this office received a request from Congressman Frank Pallone Jr., regarding the State of New Jersey’s Post-Hurricane Sandy Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery Action Plan.  Audits of Federal expenditures of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, including disaster-related activities, are something that...

Former Lafayette and Opelousas Housing Authority Executive Director Walter Guillory has been indicted on federal bribery and wire fraud charges. The U.S. Attorney’s Office on Thursday filed charges against Guillory, who was forced to resign as LHA director Oct. 25, 2010, following an audit that revealed problems at the LHA. Guillory served as executive director of the Opelousas Housing Authority from 2005 until 2009 while he was also executive...

An Oakland County woman who admits stealing $380,000 from a program for the homeless is facing two years or more in prison. Linda Linseman is a former state employee. She's returning to Detroit federal court Tuesday, four months after pleading guilty to theft of government property. The plea deal signed by the 55-year-old Waterford woman says she spent the money for herself or allowed others to enjoy it. The scheme lasted four years until...

United States Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz - District of Massachusetts DEVELOPER SENTENCED TO 12.5 YEARS IN PRISON FOR ORCHESTRATING MASSIVE MORTGAGE FRAUD INVOLVING OVER $7 MILLION IN LOSS FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: CHRISTINA DiIORIO-STERLING PHONE:  (617)748-3356 E-MAIL:  [email protected] WWW.JUSTICE.GOV/USAO/MA/NEWS BOSTON –  A Boston man was sentenced late yesterday on charges relating to a massive mortgage...

A New Orleans-based contractor who admitted to over-billing a Road Home subsidiary $236,000 was sentenced in federal court Wednesday to two-and-a-half years in prison. Praveen Kailas, a prominent and politically connected contractor, admitted to overbilling the state's Small Rental Property Program, a subset of Road Home designed to aid property owners in rebuilding their units after hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Kailas said he approved and...

Deirdre M. Daly, United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut, announced that JOSE GUZMAN, 53, of Waterford, was sentenced today by Senior U.S. District Judge Alfred V. Covello in Hartford to 51 months of imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release, for operating an extensive mortgage fraud scheme in eastern Connecticut. According to court documents and statements made in court, GUZMAN operated a fraudulent mortgage...

LA JOYA - The director of the La Joya Housing Authority says a federal investigation into his businesses may have been politically motivated. "It gets pretty dirty, they'll use whatever they want to distract the voters and trying to change, outcome (sic)," Juan Jose Garza said. Federal agents raided Garza's home and office on Wednesday. Garza said he is baffled by the investigation. Garza also serves as a La Joya ISD board member. Garza said he...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE December 18, 2013 Linda Linseman, 56, of Detroit, Michigan, was sentenced yesterday to 32 months imprisonment by Judge Robert H. Cleland for her theft of more than $385,000 in Federal and State grant funds designated to Lighthouse of Oakland, a non-profit organization in Pontiac, Michigan, dedicated to helping the homeless, announced United States Attorney Barbara L. McQuade. McQuade was joined in the announcement by...

MOBILE, Alabama – A federal judge on Monday sentenced a woman to pay restitution to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development as part of an ongoing mortgage fraud prosecution the Midtown Mortgage brokerage. In June, 27-year-old Delaine Williams pleaded guilty to falsifying a mortgage loan application so that it would be approved. It was alleged she falsely indicated that $5,000 for a down payment had come from a gift from a borrower’...

SARASOTA - The founder of a Sarasota nonprofit has pleaded guilty to stealing more than $76,000 in federal money that was supposed to go to internships for teenagers. As part of a plea agreement filed Thursday in a federal court in Tampa, Lyndon Jones, executive director of Man Up Inc., admitted to fraudulently double-billing the government for tens of thousands of dollars in wages for teenage interns in his program from 2009 to 2011. The...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Federal agents arrested Stockton residents Lillian Marquez, 38, and Michael Keatts, 56, in their homes early this morning for a mortgage fraud scheme, United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner announced. A federal grand jury indictment charged them with conspiring to commit mortgage fraud and with nine counts of mail fraud. The indictment was unsealed today. The defendants are scheduled to be arraigned today at 2:00 p.m. in...

Michael E. McLaughlin, the former Chelsea Housing Authority director already serving a prison sentence for corruption, was indicted again today along with another former housing manager and a private contractor for allegedly rigging federal inspections so that public housing units in Chelsea would pass even though the apartments were poorly maintained. A federal grand jury in Boston also indicted James H. Fitzpatrick, the housing authority’s...

South Bend, Indiana —The United States Attorney’s Office announced the following activity in Federal Court: Ian T. Kideys, 49, of La Jolla, California, was sentenced by District Judge Robert L. Miller Jr. to 60 months of imprisonment, 3 years of supervised release and $1.4 million in restitution after pleading guilty to the felony offense of wire fraud.  Kideys was also sentenced in a separate matter to 60 months of imprisonment after...

WILLIAMSPORT — A federal grand jury has indicted a State College man on charges he lied about his income to live in subsidized housing and to obtain loans for several luxury vehicles. Ivan Viktorovich Kronin, 31, of Cypress Way, is accused in the indictment Thursday in U.S. Middle District Court of stating on vehicle loan applications that his annual income from KPS Construction was between $60,000 and $78,000. But in documents submitted to the...

An official who handled rent money from residents of Philadelphia Housing Authority homes allegedly used her position to steal about $8,000 over two years, the U.S. Attorney's office said. Sondra Wong Nelson, 36, of Philadelphia, allegedly stole the rent money between June 2010 and January 2012 in her capacity as a supervisory asset manager for PHA. The alleged scam was pretty simple, the U.S. Attorney said. When a tenant would bring in their...

Fourteen months after Point Township was cleared of wrongdoing in administering a $381,000 federal grant, the state Department of Community and Economic Development may foist the repayment demand it received from the federal government onto the Northumberland County municipality. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which distributes grants that aid in the creation of low-income housing, wrote in a Sept. 10 letter to DCED that...

PHILADELPHIA - Sondra Wong Nelson, 36, of Philadelphia was charged by Indictment, unsealed October 3, 2013, with one count of theft from a federally funded organization and two counts of falsely altering a postal money order, announced U.S. Attorney Zane David Memeger. According to the indictment, between January 2012 and June 2010, during her tenure as a Supervisory Asset Manager at the Philadelphia Housing Authority (APHA@), Nelson embezzled...