Whipped Cream Difficulties

Tiawana Brown is a councilwoman in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Tiawana Brown is a remarkable individual who has overcome domestic violence and mass incarceration…Tia is a mother of two adult daughters, Antoinette and Tijema. Tijema was born while Tia was serving her federal sentence, making her birth occur in a federal prison.

She was elected in 2023. According to the reports I’ve found, she was convicted of felony fraud in 1994 and served four years.

She was indicted today, along with her two daughters.

Charlotte City Councilwoman Tiawana Brown threw herself a $15,000 birthday party with a throne and a horse-drawn carriage using COVID pandemic relief funds wired to her nonprofit, federal prosecutors say.
She and one of her daughters also are accused of using relief money to purchase items from luxury brand Louis Vuitton.

…

She and her daughters face federal charges of using fake, never-filed IRS forms and lying on loan applications for relief funds, according to a federal indictment filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina Thursday.

From the US Attorney’s press release:

“According to allegations in the indictment, between April 2020 and September 2021, the defendants conspired to execute a scheme to defraud the Small Business Administration’s (SBA) Economic Injury Disaster Loan (EIDL) program and its Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and obtain COVID pandemic relief funds for their purported businesses, through the submission of loan applications that contained false information or false documentation. It is alleged that the false documentation generally included fake and fraudulent tax forms, among other misrepresentations. It is further alleged that the defendants submitted false statements to obtain forgiveness of the PPP loans. In total, the defendants allegedly submitted at least 15 applications for EIDL or PPP funds and falsely obtained at least $124,165 in connection with their scheme to defraud.”

Charlotte Observer (archived). WBTV, which includes a Scribd version of the indictment.

I don’t know what to make of this story. I don’t feel like it qualifies for flaming hyena status yet, but I do feel like it is noteworthy.

Up until yesterday, Matthew Bruderman was the chairman of Nassau University Medical Center. A couple of weeks ago, Mr. Bruderman announced he was cooperating with the FBI and Department of Justice in an investigation. Specifically, Mr. Bruderman claims that New York state and Long Island have stolen at least $1 billion from the organization.

Bruderman said he believes the officials’ ultimate goal was to financially strangle the public hospital, paving the way for state and local leaders to shut it down, take over the land currently owned by the public-benefit corporation that runs it and have it redeveloped for profit.

Wednesday night, Mr. Bruderman’s house was burglarized. However, the only thing allegedly taken was…documents tied to the investigation.

Bruderman wasn’t home at the time of the robbery and only found out after police called to inform him they had recovered a binder with his name on it in a car driven by an unidentified couple, he said.
“I was confused because that was the binder I had on my desk when I left,” he said.
Bruderman said he later found his backdoor pried wide open.
The binder, he said, contained “sensitive” materials related to the ongoing federal investigation, including documents and records tied to the financial misconduct he claims to have uncovered while reviewing hospital finances and state reimbursements.

Things that make you go “Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm”:

At the heart of the alleged scheme is a little-known federal program called the Disproportionate Share Hospital Fund — meant to help keep afloat struggling hospitals such as NUMC, which treat large numbers of low-income patients on Medicaid and Medicare.
Under the program, the federal government agrees to give hospitals tens of millions of dollars in funding as long as their state matches the investment.

…

According to [Bruderman’s] review of internal financial records, previous hospital leadership allegedly “borrowed” what was supposed to be the state’s matching share from an offshore account tied to a Cayman Islands trust, originally set up to cover the medical center’s legal bills.
That money would be temporarily transferred into the hospital’s general fund just long enough to fool the feds into thinking New York had paid its share — unlocking the federal portion of the funding, he claimed.
But once the federal funds cleared, the state’s contribution would allegedly be moved right back offshore.
That would mean those matching funds vanished into the shadows in a conspiracy that could’ve included top officials.

More things that make you go “Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm”: Mr. Bruderman was fired on Thursday.

Bruderman, who was unpaid in his position as chairman, told The Post he was shocked by his firing and is the victim of a political scandal.
“I was told if I didn’t resign today, like a coward, I would be removed. I was told [Gov.] Kathy Hochul wanted my head for exposing the corruption and previously supporting Lee Zeldin. I was told I don’t understand how powerful these people are and the lengths they would go to hurt me. I refused to resign and they had no choice but to remove me,” Bruderman told The Post.

Again, I don’t know what to make of this. A lot of the coverage seems to be from Mr. Bruderman’s point of view, and I won’t rule out the possibility that he’s trying to divert attention away from his own activities. On the other hand, I’m absolutely not going to rule out the idea that New York state and Nassau County officials are as crooked as a three-dollar bill, and have been doing exactly what Mr. Bruderman claims.

In other news, and I guess this qualifies as a flaming hyena: Wisconsin judge Hannah Dugan has been arrested by the FBI.

Flores Ruiz, 30, had appeared before Dugan April 18 for a pre-trial conference on three misdemeanor battery charges.
ICE agents showed up outside the courtroom with a federal warrant for Flores Ruiz’s arrest but were asked by court officials to wait until the hearing had ended before cuffing him, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, citing law enforcement sources.
Before the agents could enter, Dugan allegedly directed Flores Ruiz and his lawyer out a side door and through a private hallway to avoid apprehension.

Judge Dugan is charged with “obstruction of justice and concealing a person from arrest”. The NYTimes has additional coverage, including a link to the charging document, but share links aren’t working for me right now. I’ll try to update later.

Looks like Tania Fernandes Anderson is going to take a plea. (Previously.)

And one of the local TV stations has video of her and some other folks removing items from her office prior to her plea deal.

One day after the furniture was removed from City Hall, a $67.12 U-Haul charge was posted on the councilor’s campaign finance report.

Is that legal? Can you use campaign funds for a U-Haul to move stuff out of your office before you go to the big house?

…but I just can’t. I’m laughing too hard right now.

(You may remember Ms. James for her prolonged legal battle against the NRA.)

Also, she’s only been “referred” for possible prosecution, not actually indicted yet. When the indictment comes up, I’ll get out the marshmallows, graham crackers, and chocolate, so I can make S’Mores over the bonfire of Letitia James and her political ambitions.

Oh, New Jersey. Notable for the Joyce Kilmer Service Area…and corruption.

39 people were indicted today for their parts in what’s described as a “sweeping gambling case that was part of a two-year investigation that uncovered illegal operations in Woodland Park, Garfield, and Totowa that netted $3 million in illegal profits, the AG alleged.”

One of those people is George Zappola, who is allegedly a leader in the Lucchese Mafia family. Some other Lucchese captains and soldiers were also indicted.

Also indicted: a councilman from Prospect Park.

Prospect Park Councilman Anand Shah, 42, allegedly managed illegal poker games and ran an online sportsbook tied to four members of the mob family, New Jersey Attorney General Matthew Platkin alleged at a press conference in Newark on Friday morning.

More:

On Wednesday, cops raided four illegal poker clubs connected to the Lucchese family, two of which were run out of the backrooms of restaurants. They also searched a business in Paterson that was storing gambling machines and the homes of seven people who were allegedly managing the gambling operation.
The raid led officials to discover more poker clubs and dozens of people who hosted poker games, worked at the clubs, or managed bettors on an illegal online sportsbook on sites outside the US, Platkin said.

…

The websites allowed the mobsters to use the internet and technology to carry out the same criminal activities La Cosa Nostra had been doing the old-fashioned way since the 19th century, Platkin said.
Shah is charged with racketeering, conspiracy to promote gambling and money laundering and other charges for which he could face up to 20 years in prison if convicted on the top charge.

Whale sushi!

He is not accused of using his office to carry out the alleged crimes and is not accused of being a made member of the Mafia — but rather an associate of it, officials alleged.

This seems simultaneously small-time and stupid. How much money can there be in the “rake” from poker games? And with the existence of actual real sportsbooks that advertise constantly on television, who uses a Mob sportsbook? People who can’t get an account with a legal one? What percentage of the market is that?

Mike the Musicologist asked me if this qualified. Technically, I’m not sure it does, as I usually reserve flaming hyenas for criminal indictments.

But this is noteworthy, and since I suspect criminal indictments are coming…

There was a Democratic primary in Cook County, Illinois, yesterday. (There may have been primaries elsewhere, but I’m not that up on Illinois politics.)

Cook County includes Dolton, home of Mayor Tiffany Henyard.

How did Tiff do?

She lost. Badly.

With 17 of 17 precincts reported and 100% of the vote counted, per the Cook County Clerk website, [Jason] House won the primary with 3,896 votes (87.91%), compared to Henyard’s 536 votes (12.09%).

I think we can call that a landslide. As a matter of fact, I think we could even call that an avalanche.

For those who are unfamiliar with Ms. Henyard…I wish there was one central source for her that wasn’t Wikipedia. She’s served one term as mayor of Dolton, and that term has been chaotic. Fights at council meetings, the town running out of money, allegations of misuse of public funds, and the list goes on and on.

I note that NBC5 Chicago has a “Dolton” tag. And an hour-long documentary about Dolton and Mayor Henyard. This is one of those stories where, just when you think it can’t get any crazier, it does.