{"id":357991,"date":"2026-07-30T20:11:07","date_gmt":"2026-07-30T20:11:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/357991\/"},"modified":"2026-07-30T20:11:07","modified_gmt":"2026-07-30T20:11:07","slug":"tallahassee-woman-federally-indicted-for-defrauding-tallahassee-housing-authority-of-378000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/357991\/","title":{"rendered":"Tallahassee Woman Federally Indicted for Defrauding Tallahassee Housing Authority of $378,000"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tallahassee, Florida\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Lekishaann Huggins, 45, of Tallahassee, Florida,\u00a0was indicted by a federal grand jury charging her with 39 counts of bank fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft, four counts of spending money laundering, and two counts of filing a false tax return. This investigation is a part of the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud launched by President Donald J. <a href=\"https:\/\/finchannel.com\/?s=trump\" data-internallinksmanager029f6b8e52c=\"10\" title=\"Trump\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Trump<\/a>, a whole-of-government effort to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse within Federal benefit programs. John P. Heekin, United States Attorney for the Northern District of Florida, announced the charges today.<\/p>\n<p>The defendant appeared for her arraignment in federal court before United States Magistrate Judge Martin A. Fitzpatrick in Tallassee, Florida. Jury trial is scheduled for September 8, 2026, at 8:30 a.m. before United States Chief District Court Judge Allen C. Winsor.<\/p>\n<p>If convicted, the defendant faces up to 30 years\u2019 imprisonment for each of the 39 counts of bank fraud, 2 years\u2019 imprisonment consecutive to any other imprisonment for the aggravated identity theft count, up to 10 years\u2019 imprisonment for each spending money laundering count, up to 3 years\u2019 imprisonment for each filing false tax return count and, restitution, and forfeiture of assets.<\/p>\n<p>The case was investigated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Inspector General.<\/p>\n<p>An indictment is merely an allegation by a grand jury that a defendant has committed a violation of federal criminal law and is not evidence of guilt. All defendants are presumed innocent and entitled to a fair trial, during which it will be the government\u2019s burden to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt at trial.<\/p>\n<p>On April 7, the Department of Justice announced the creation of the National Fraud Enforcement Division (\u201cFraud Division\u201d). The Fraud Division is investigating and prosecuting those who commit fraud against the American people. The Department\u2019s work to combat fraud supports President Trump\u2019s Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, a whole-of-government effort chaired by Vice President J.D. Vance to eliminate fraud, waste, and abuse within Federal benefit programs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tallahassee, Florida\u00a0\u2013\u00a0Lekishaann Huggins, 45, of Tallahassee, Florida,\u00a0was indicted by a federal grand jury charging her with 39 counts&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":357992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[232,234,233],"class_list":["post-357991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee","tag-tallahassee-headlines","tag-tallahassee-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=357991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/357991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=357991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=357991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=357991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}