Four people, including two Marietta city employees, have been indicted in federal court on charges of housing fraud.
Shantel Bowens, Debbie Bailey, Babatunde "Babs" Abass and Tunji "Chris" Imoukhuede were all indicted late last month in connection with a 30-month operation in which federal prosecutors alleged records were falsified and more than $230,000 in Section 8 payments was stolen.
Abass, Bailey and Bowens have been arraigned and Imoukhuede will be arraigned at a later date.
According to a press release Tuesday from the office of U.S. Attorney Sally Quillian Yates, Bailey and Bowens allegedly used their employment in Marietta's housing office, where they were responsible for administering landlord and tenant enrollment for local Section 8 participants, to commit part of the crime. The two are accused of reactivating the accounts of people no longer in the Section 8 program and funneling federal money to Abass and Imoukhuede, who were registered landlords in the federal program.
Abass and Imoukhuede are accused of withdrawing the fraudulently obtained money and giving a portion of it to Bailey and Bowens.
Authorities believe the group operated the enterprise from January 2011 until June 2013. It is also alleged that during much of that time, Bowens moved into a property owned by a relative and arranged for that relative to receive payments for a nonexistent tenant while Bowens lived at the residence rent free. The estimated housing cost for that period is more than $40,000, authorities said.
"This indictment should send a strong message that HUD-OIG will aggressively pursue landlord fraud, especially when it is facilitated by persons in positions of public trust," said Lester Fernandez, of the Region 4 U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Inspector General. "In partnership with state and local law enforcement and federal agencies, we are deeply committed to ensuring that scarce resources are not diverted to those who seek to enrich themselves. We will continue to seek program accountability and promote honest stewardship of taxpayer funds by grantees entrusted with taxpayer monies."
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