Judge orders home of ex-Jacksonville City Council member seized for fraud restitution

Steve Patterson, Florida Times-Union
·2 min read
Former Jacksonville City Council member Reggie Brown faced a line of cameras and reporters when he reached Jacksonville's federal courthouse for sentencing on a fraud case in October 2020.
Former Jacksonville City Council member Reggie Brown faced a line of cameras and reporters when he reached Jacksonville's federal courthouse for sentencing on a fraud case in October 2020.

A federal judge ordered former Jacksonville City Council member Reggie Brown’s home seized and sold Wednesday, apparently days after Brown completed a prison sentence for fraud.

U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard granted a request from prosecutors to seize the home to help settle a $411,000 forfeiture order she imposed in October 2020, when Brown was sentenced with fellow ex-Council member Katrina Brown on dozens of fraud counts involving billing for a failed barbecue sauce factory.

Prosecutors said no payments had been made when they asked last month for permission to take the house on Ray Road, off Cleveland Road near Edgewood Avenue in Northwest Jacksonville.

Duval County Property Appraiser’s Office records estimate the home’s market value at $93,500.

Earlier coverage: Prison terms start for 2 Jacksonville ex-City Council members convicted of fraud

Howard’s order described her action as preliminary, apparently to leave time for other people to argue they already had legal claims on the land that should take priority.

“Assuming no third-party files a successful claim to the real property, the net proceeds … will be credited towards the partial satisfaction of the defendant’s order of forfeiture,” the judge wrote.

Brown, who is not related to Katrina Brown, bought the home in 2010. He had claimed it as his homestead, meaning he lived there before he reported in January 2021 to Federal Correctional Institution-Jesup in Wayne County, Ga. to begin serving an 18-month sentence.

While the federal Bureau of Prisons initially projected Brown, 59, could complete his confinement this May, an inmate-locating website the bureau operates said Wednesday that he had been released Friday.

In October 2019, a jury found Brown guilty of 33 counts, and Katrina Brown guilty of 37 counts, most of which involved misleading a lender financing a project by Katrina Brown's family to open a barbecue sauce factory on Commonwealth Avenue.

None of the crimes involved their roles as council members, but the two were suspended from office soon after their May 2018 indictments.

Katrina Brown, who was sentenced to 33 months behind bars, remained in custody Wednesday at FCI-Marianna in Jackson County, the prisons website said.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Ex-City Council member Reggie Brown's Jacksonville home seized