THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, June 17, 1995 TAG: 9506170328
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY TONI WHITT, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 53 lines
A former employee of the beleaguered Chesapeake Redevelopment and Housing Authority pleaded guilty Friday to embezzling nearly $122,000 in federal funds from the agency.
According to the charges, Sheilah Banton, who managed a rental assistance program for the housing authority, was able to issue checks to friends, tenants and rental owners who cashed the checks and split the money with her. No one else was named in the charges.
Banton, a 30-year-old single mother of two, pleaded guilty to taking the money between January 1994 and February 1995. Banton had been employed at the housing authority for more than six years, said its executive director, Edmund Carrera.
Banton was not available for comment. She will be sentenced on Sept. 21.
Carrera said he called in federal agents after noticing some ``irregularities in the number of checks being drawn.'' The agency did an internal audit to confirm that there was evidence of embezzlement.
The FBI and the Inspector General's office of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development investigated Banton for three months.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Alan M. Salsbury said the housing authority received about $2.8 million to administer the program in 1994. Not all of those funds were used for rent subsidies, and Carrera said it would be difficult to estimate how much went toward rents.
``No one was denied housing,'' Carrera said of the embezzlement scheme. ``We have 710 certificates or vouchers for housing, that number was still there. They were not ripping off money from the housing authority, they were ripping off money from Washington, D.C.''
Carrera added that the funds were insured.
Steve McCool, an investigator with HUD, said the housing authority tipped off federal officials as soon as they had enough evidence.
``The housing authority has worked overtime to clear up the problem,'' McCool said.
Banton faces 10 years in jail and a $250,000 fine. A native of Jamaica, Banton also faces deportation if she cannot prove she has becomea naturalized citizen since moving to this country in 1982. Banton told U.S. District Judge Rebecca Smith that she had been adopted by her stepmother, a U.S. citizen, since coming to this country.
Smith told Banton she also may be required to pay back the embezzled money.
KEYWORDS: EMBEZZLE GUILTY PLEA by CNB