Last May, now-former Councilwoman Tiawana Brown and her two daughters were indicted for making 15 false applications for COVID-19 relief funds totaling $124,000.
This past Wednesday during a court hearing, Brown’s 30-year old daughter Tijema took a plea deal from U.S. Attorney Russ Ferguson’s office in the Western District of North Carolina.
A guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud was part of the deal, for which prosecutors agreed to drop two wire fraud charges. The deal also includes prosecutors agreeing not to object to a sentence without prison time, but it’s up to the judge decide if she serves any time.
The plea agreement, which is not yet publicly available, includes forfeiture “all assets listed in the charging document.”
The indictment listed around $124,165 in funds. The statement of facts document filed in the case for Tijema Brown says she was responsible for obtaining over $70,000 of that amount.
In February of this year Tiawana Brown made a similar plea agreement but has not yet been sentenced. She has made statements that the charges against her and her family were both a “political attack” and a “deliberate effort” to unseat her from the city council.
Brown had spent upwards of $15,000 of the fraudulently received funds on her 50th birthday party, which included $2,300 spent on hiring a professional photographer/videographer for the party, $3,500 renting the venue, and roughly $5,000 in catering charges.
The photos were posted to social media by Brown’s account “Beauty After The Bars,” which included showing Brown on a throne and getting into a horse-drawn carriage.
The charges involved have a maximum prison penalty of 20 years but given the plea agreements, it is likely they will received some form of probation in addition to restitution.
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