OPERATION RESTORE PUBLIC INTEGRITY INDICTMENT RETURNED

Hammond, IN—The United States Attorney’s Office today announced the return of a four count indictment charging Patricia A. Bobo, age 59, of Chicago, IL, with two counts of embezzling funds from the Gary Housing Authority and two counts of income tax evasion.

The Gary Housing Authority is an agency of the City of Gary, and is governed by a Board of Commissioners, members of which are all appointed by the Mayor. One of the principal obligations of the GHA is to provide low-cost housing for economically disadvantaged residents of Gary. The GHA receives the majority of its funding from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Bobo served as interim Finance Director of GHA from August 2002, to April 2003. In April 2003, she was named permanent Finance Director and held that post until she was removed in September 2003. As Finance Director, Bobo was responsible for all financial aspects of the GHA's operations, and supervised other GHA employees.

From August 2002, through September 2003, Bobo caused a series of GHA checks to be issued to herself to which she was not entitled. Some of these checks, for example, were in the precise amount of her regular bi-weekly salary check to make it appear as if these were salary checks. Bobo also removed certain checks from the monthly bank records and instructed GHA employees not to reconcile certain bank statements. The indictment alleges that Bobo embezzled over $100,000 from GHA during this time period.

Bobo did not report any of the fraudulently obtained income on a tax return, and in fact did not file any tax returns for the years 2002 and 2003.

These indictments were the result of an extensive cooperative investigation by the Northwest Indiana Public Corruption Task Force. Participating in this investigation were agents of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) and the Indiana State Police (ISP). This matter is assigned to and will be prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Bernard L.Van Wormer

The specific sentence to be imposed upon conviction in each case will be determined by the judge after a consideration of federal sentencing statutes and the Federal Sentencing Guidelines.

The United States Attorney’s Office emphasized that an Indictment is merely an allegation and that all persons charged are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty in court.

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