A former local housing authority employee in Massachusetts faces criminal charges over stealing low-income families’ rent, according to court documents obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.
Rosa A. Faminia — who resigned from her job as an accounting assistant for the federally funded Framingham Housing Authority (FHA) while under investigation in 2015 — pocketed 181 cash rent payments worth $70,649 from tenants, according to the documents filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts.
Court records allege Faminia adjusted tenants’ balances downward in an electronic accounting system and deposited the cash in a joint bank account she and her boyfriend owned. Faminia, who began working at the FHA in 2010, conducted the alleged scam between February 2014 and August 2015, according to the Department of Justice (DOJ). (RELATED: Here’s Why Gov’t Housing Vouchers End Up Causing More Poverty)
Faminia — if convicted of the count of theft concerning a program receiving federal funds — will spend no longer than 10 years in prison and pay a fine up to $250,000. FHA suspended Faminia before allowing her to resign, according to the DOJ.
The Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) funds and oversees more than 3,000 local housing authorities across the country. HUD’s finances are in such disarray that HUD’s Office of Inspector General couldn’t audit them last year.
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