Housing authority ex-director Tonya Robinson, 2 co-defendants guilty of fraud conspiracy

SOUTH BEND — Tonya Robinson, who led the South Bend Housing Authority for five years, as well as one of her top employees and an outside contractor, are all guilty of a multi-year conspiracy to steal money from the public housing provider, a jury unanimously decided Wednesday.

In a federal courtroom in downtown South Bend, Robinson pursed her lips as she faced the clerk of the court to hear that she was found guilty on nine of 10 counts for scheming to defraud the federal government by way of bank fraud, wire fraud and federal program theft.

Albert Smith, the housing authority's asset director from 2016 to 2019, was found guilty on all 10 counts. His brow furrowed and he looked down into his lap as he listened to the verdict.

Robinson, who's now 60, led the housing authority from 2014 to 2019. Prosecutors claim that she and Smith, 47, authorized housing authority checks to be paid to contractors for work that never actually happened. The two defendants then instructed those contractors to cash the checks and split the money three ways.

One such contractor, 42-year-old Douglas Donley, was found guilty Wednesday of participating in the conspiracy and on one count of bank fraud.

More than $300,000 in checks were made out to Donley's company, D. Fresh Contractors, while he was living in Atlanta and couldn't have been doing the work, prosecutors said. He had been dating Tyreisha Robinson — Tonya Robinson's daughter, who was also a housing authority employee.

Robinson and Donley declined to comment Wednesday as they left the federal courthouse in downtown South Bend. Smith exited through a separate door of the courthouse and couldn't be asked for comment.

The prosecutors connected both Robinson's and Smith's embezzling to exorbitant gambling habits. Records obtained from each defendant's Four Winds Casino Players Club card found that their tenures at the housing authority coincided with Robinson losing at least $600,000 at the casino and Smith losing more than $450,000.

Over the course of the scheme, Robinson was found to have made cash deposits totaling $655,000 to her personal bank account, according to court documents.

Defense attorneys challenged the veracity of the casino's records. They claimed that contractors fraudulently accepted housing authority money, but that neither Robinson nor Smith knew of the scheme because of shoddy bookkeeping by a subordinate employee.

Over the course of the scheme, more than $5.8 million was paid to contractors, prosecutors said. While some of it went toward legitimate repairs, many of the payments were fraudulent and led to no improvements at housing authority properties.

Other contractors who already pleaded guilty to fraud in exchange for more lenient sentences are Tyreisha Robinson; Archie Robinson III (no relation), owner of a business called Kleaning to Renovations Inc.; and Ronald Taylor Jr., owner of "A Taylor Made Handy Man." All are from South Bend.

Taylor has already been sentenced to more than three years in prison for his role in the scheme. Tyreisha Robinson and Archie Robinson III both testified during the trial and will be sentenced in the coming months.

Tonya Robinson, Albert Smith and Douglas Donley are to be sentenced Feb. 29 of the new year by judge Jon DeGuilio. The case was prosecuted by the U.S. District Attorney's Office of the Northern District of Indiana because the housing authority is federally funded, and the relevant bank payments were insured by the federal government.

The 12-person jury's decision on each count had to be unanimous because this was a criminal case and wrongdoing must be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

Though all three defendants are African American, none of the jurors appeared to be Black; 11 appeared to be white and one Hispanic. Federal courts use state voting records from the counties within a designated district to randomly select a pool of prospective jurors.

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Robinson was let go in September of 2019 after an FBI raid of multiple housing authority properties. Robinson's successor, Catherine Lamberg, served for about two years but left the role in June of this year for personal reasons, according to Virginia Calvin, chair of the housing authority's board of directors.

The long-troubled public housing provider has been without an official director for nearly five months. The Department of Housing and Urban Development, which funds the housing authority and pays its local employees, consistently rates the agency's nearly 700 properties in South Bend among the worst in Indiana.

South Bend's mayor appoints the board of commissioners, which hires the executive director. Calvin said a national search was conducted for Lamberg's replacement, and the board hopes to name a new director by the year's end.

"We want someone just as competent. Catherine did a beautiful job," Calvin told The Tribune in July. "The budget's in line, personnel's in line, so we're prepared for the next person to move in."

Email South Bend Tribune city reporter Jordan Smith at JTsmith@gannett.com. Follow him on Twitter: @jordantsmith09

This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: Tonya Robinson and Albert Smith guilty of defrauding housing authority