Fort Bend County official among 3 indicted for alleged fraud

And we're going to go down to Fort Bend County, where, as I said at the top of the newscast here, the Fort Bend County tax assessor-collector has been arrested on federal charges. Let's go to Sacra Gray joining us now with those details. Sacra? At the center of this is Fort Bend County tax assessor-collector Carmen Turner. Federal prosecutors say that she was using county payroll dollars as her own personal piggy bank, and her responsibility is to manage public funds. But they're saying that instead of doing that, she was using the public funds for her own personal gains. And in doing so, she was running a multi-year fraud scheme, allegedly. So this is exactly what federal prosecutors are saying. They say she hired two of the co-defendants, Shamarilyn Fields and Victor Ewing, for county jobs that they were not actually doing. They say Turner hired Fields as a deputy tax clerk. But rather than doing county work, Fields was instead paid with public funds to care for Turner's elderly mother. Meanwhile, Ewing is allegedly the father of Turner's son. And prosecutors claim Turner hired him as a full-time department coordinator, even though he was actually living and working full-time in Chicago, not in Fort Bend County. She specifically used taxpayer money to pay subordinates to care for her elderly mother while they were on the county clock. And then she instructed them to lie about this on their timesheets. Taxpayers have a right to know that their tax dollars are being used for their lawful intended purpose. All three defendants were arrested this morning, two in Houston or in the Houston area and the other in Chicago. And with that, they're facing a nine count federal indictment, including wire fraud and conspiracy. Back to you. I mean, those are some big charges. And anytime you talk about these charges on a federal level, you can look at some time. So how much time are we talking here, if in fact they are convicted? Yeah, if they're convicted, they could be facing decades in federal prison to break down kind of what those years can look like, up to 20 years in prison for each wire fraud count, up to 10 years in prison for theft involving federal program funds, up to five years for conspiracy. And then each of those charges carries up to $250,000 in fines as well. So again, the big takeaway from today's press conference with federal prosecutors is that if you're anybody seeking public office for your own personal or selfish gain, that there could be some severe consequences if you're caught not acting in the public's favor. All right, Sakura, thank you so much for that report. One viewer saying that is despicable.