Posted on 07/21/2021 7:12:17 AM PDT by jaydubya2
Federal prosecutors on Tuesday afternoon announced that a grand jury indicted Tonya Robinson, the former executive director of the South Bend Housing Authority, and four others in a scheme that defrauded the U.S. government of millions of dollars.
The indictment says payments to the contractors totaled $5.8 million "over the course of the scheme."
The money went to the "personal use and benefit" of the defendants, according to the indictment, including "spending the proceeds at local casinos."
Robinson, 58, who ran the authority from 2014 until she was fired in September 2019, made cash deposits into her personal bank accounts totaling $655,000 from 2015 through 2019, prosecutors allege in the indictment. She hid the scheme from the housing authority board, according to court documents.
Of the money from the scheme, the indictment says, Tonya Robinson lost at least $600,000 at casinos between 2015 and 2018, while Smith lost at least $450,000 in those years.
HUD calculated the average expense per housing unit each month for the authority and similarly sized housing authorities throughout Indiana. The authority’s average monthly expense per unit was calculated at about $247 in 2016, more than three times the $70 average of the other housing authorities, according to court records.
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