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Three New Jersey residents were arrested Wednesday night on charges that they stole over $1 million from New York City’s One Shot Deal program by using fraudulent identities, according to the Department of Investigation.
The city’s Department of Investigation alleges that scammers stole over $1 million from a pool of city money designated to help people facing eviction and homelessness.
The scammers used fake identities and front companies posing as landlords to swindle the city’s New York City’s Human Resources Administration (HRA), the complaint claims.
Tenants behind on rent due to hardship like the loss of a job can apply to New York’s “One Shot Deal” program, which will pay up to six months of back rent and help stave off eviction or homelessness. Allegedly, the defendants used false identities to submit 170 applications to HRA, with the agency approving 94 of them.
The agency rejected most rental assistance applications so far this year, according to Gothamist, often sending them back for resubmission.
In a statement, the Department of Social Services, which oversees HRA, said that its “integrity review process identified these suspicious applications and referred the matter to the Department of Investigation two years ago, exactly as our oversight systems are designed to do.”
The defendants—Erica Williams, Kareem Canty, and Tajizhanae Whitaker—were arrested Wednesday night in New Jersey and charged with conspiracy, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft. The city’s Department of Investigation investigated alongside the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which is prosecuting the case.
“These defendants allegedly manipulated sensitive personal information as well as the City’s One Shot Deal application process to fraudulently divert emergency rental assistance payments,” said DOI Commissioner Nadia Shihata in a statement.
With One Shot Deals, HRA pays landlords directly on behalf of eligible renters. The city issued 54,343 one shot deals in the last fiscal year that ended in July. The year before, the city spent $555 million on the deals, with an average of $9,700 each, according to the New York Housing Conference.
The funds were “intended to keep the most vulnerable New Yorkers in their homes,” said Shihata.
In one instance, investigators allege that Williams submitted a One Shot Deal application from her home IP address in New Jersey. The application listed an address in Rego Park, Queens and included copies of a birth certificate and passport, “belonging to a certain individual that was purportedly Applicant-2 but in fact belonged to someone else,” the charging documents read.
The applicant, who prosecutors allege was Williams, listed the property manager as ALC Development LLC. But the LLC does not own or operate any housing in New York City, according to investigators, and was controlled by Williams. In June 2022, HRA sent seven checks totaling $14,000 to ALC Development LLC’s bank account.
Williams, Canty, and Whitaker allegedly submitted 170 applications from New Jersey computers, using falsified identities and naming three LLCs registered in New Jersey and controlled by Williams as the property managers, the complaint says. Williams then used the LLCs to transfer funds to the personal bank accounts of Canty and Whitaker, the alleged co-conspirators.
Attempts to reach the defendants were unsuccessful.
Here’s what else happened in housing this week—
ICYMI, from City Limits:
- The tallest mural in the U.S. debuted recently in the South Bronx, spanning all 29 stories of a building at NYCHA’s Morrisania Air Rights development.
- Nine homeless New Yorkers who died of hypothermia during last winter’s brutally cold weather were laid to rest this week in Manhattan, after advocates stepped in to claim their remains, which were initially headed for burial at the city’s potter’s field on Hart Island.
- City Hall released a long awaited plan to increase the number of public restrooms across the city, but homeless advocates—who’ve pushed the issue for years as part of a “Free to Pee” campaign—say it lacks detail and funding commitments.
ICYMI, from other local newsrooms:
- The Mamdani administration intervened to try and halt an eviction in Brooklyn which advocates say is a case of deed theft, according to The City Reporter.
- City Hall scored a court victory this week in one of the legal challenges to the mayor’s pied-à-terre tax on pricey second homes, Gothamist reports.
- The Sunset Park home where a fire killed six people this week had previous violations for illegally subdividing apartments, according to Pix 11.
- A Queens man was convicted under a New York State law targeting deed theft, the New York Times reports.
- Property owners are pushing state lawmakers to tackle rising property insurance costs in Albany this year, according to The Real Deal.
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