One of Facebook’s global diversity strategists is under fire for spending company money to fund her own life.
She has plead guilty to stealing millions of dollars during her time working at Facebook.
During her time at the company, she was a global diversity strategist.
She led various Facebook Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs from 2017 through mid-2021.
Now, according to federal prosecutors, she has plead guilty to wire fraud after stealing more than $4 million from the company “to fund a lavish lifestyle” in California and Georgia.
She stole the money “through an elaborate scheme involving fraudulent vendors, fictitious charges, and cash kickbacks,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Atlanta said in a statement.
Barbara Furlow-Smiles, who pled guilty in Atlanta federal court on Monday, was not the top DEI leader for Facebook, whose parent company is Meta.
Prosecutors said that the 38-year-old caused Facebook to pay people for goods and services that were never actually provided to the company.
On top of never providing those services, she also had some of those individuals pay her kickbacks.
“These individuals included friends, relatives, former interns from a prior job, nannies and babysitters, a hair stylist, and her university tutor,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
In certain instances, Furlow-Smiles had Facebook pay people who did not give her kickbacks.
In one case, she directed $10,000 to an artist for specialty portraits, and more than $18,000 to a preschool for tuition, according to prosecutors.
As part of her scheme, Furlow-Smiles linked PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App accounts to her Facebook credit cards.
Then, she used those accounts to pay friends, relatives, and other associates for goods and services purportedly provided to Facebook.
U.S. Attorney Ryan Buchanan, in a statement, said that Furlow-Smiles had abused her position of trust at Facebook to “defraud the company of millions of dollars.”
He continued, saying she was “ignoring the insidious consequences of undermining the importance of her DEI mission.”
“Motivated by greed, she used her time to orchestrate an elaborate criminal scheme in which fraudulent vendors paid her kickbacks in cash,” Buchanan’s statement continued.
“She even involved relatives, friends, and other associates in her crimes, all to fund a lavish lifestyle through fraud rather than hard and honest work,” he said.
According to prosecutors, Meta provided assistance and cooperation with the criminal investigation.
Furlow-Smiles, who lives in Atlanta, is scheduled to be sentenced on March 19.
For now, she is free on a $5,000 bond.
“We are cooperating with law enforcement on the case regarding this former program manager, and we will continue to do so,” a spokesperson for Meta said in a statement to CNBC.
Prosecutors said in court documents that Furlow-Smiles used her position at Facebook to bring in vendors who were owned by friends and associates.
Once Facebook signed off to onboarding them, Furlow-Smiles would inflate the expense reports to make extra money she had the vendors send back to her.
“In these reports, she falsely claimed that her associates or their businesses provided goods and services to Facebook for various programs and events, when in fact they had not,” prosecutors said.
Relatives, friends, former interns from a previous job, “nannies and babysitters,” a hair stylist, and her college tutor were all said to be involved in her scheme.