Scammer Gets Three Years For Role In Conspiracy That Ripped Off Snoozing City Housing Authority Of $1.4M

From the Office of the U.S. Attorney (Baltimore, Maryland):

• U.S. District Judge William D. Quarles, Jr. sentenced Tyeast Brown, a/k/a Peaches, age 41, of Washington, D.C., [] to three years in prison followed by four years of supervised release for conspiring to commit bank fraud in connection with a scheme to steal over $1.399 million from a Housing Authority of Baltimore City (HABC) bank account in just a few months. Judge Quarles also entered an order requiring Brown to forfeit and pay restitution of at least $1,399,700.
  
  The sentence was announced by United States Attorney for the District of Maryland Rod J. Rosenstein and Special Agent in Charge Stephen E. Vogt of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
  
  According to her guilty plea, Brown conspired with others in a scheme to steal money from the HABC. With Brown’s knowledge, in May of 2010, co-defendant William Darden used co-defendant Keith Daughtry’s identity to obtain a fraudulent driver’s license in Daughtry’s name, but bearing Darden’s photograph. The fraudulent driver’s license was made so that if law enforcement were to locate Daughtry through the fraudulent license’s use, Daughtry could claim that his identity had been stolen.
  
  On May 25, 2010, Darden used the fraudulent driver’s license to open a bank account for an entity called Keith Daughtry Contracting LLC. Shortly thereafter, substantial amounts of funds illegally diverted by Brown’s conspirators from a HABC bank account were electronically transferred into the Daughtry LLC bank account, even though Daughtry LLC had never provided any services to the HABC requiring compensation.
  
  Investigators have determined that the conspirators were responsible for transferring at least $1,399,700 stolen from HABC’s account into Daughtry LLC’s account between July and September 2010.

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• Brown recruited a number of individuals, mostly young women, who during the summer of 2010 opened debit cards in their own names. Several hundreds of thousands of dollars in stolen HABC funds were transferred from the Daughtry LLC account onto these debit cards. Brown then directed her recruits to withdraw most of these funds off the debit cards through cash withdrawals, and demanded that the recruits provide her with this cash, though she permitted them to keep amounts for themselves.
  
  Brown, in turn, divided the cash with her conspirators. Brown periodically checked the account balances on the debit cards in her recruits’ names.. Brown admits that she is responsible for over $1 million in losses as a result of her participation in the conspiracy.
  
  Keith Eugene Daughtry, age 50, and William Darden, age 45, both of Washington, D.C., pleaded guilty to their role in the scheme. Daughtry was sentenced to 41 months in prison and ordered to forfeit and pay restitution of $1,399,700. Darden is awaiting sentencing.

For the U.S. Attorney press release, see Second Conspirator Sentenced in Scheme to Fraudulently Obtain over $1.399 Million from Baltimore Housing Authority Account.