CULTURE OF CORRUPTION: HUD Official Pleads Guilty To Stealing $843,000 In Taxpayer Funds.

Former Housing and Urban Development loan specialist Brian Thompson pleaded guilty Thursday to stealing $843,000 of taxpayer money in a wire fraud scheme.

Thompson was responsible for selling properties acquired by the government after borrowers defaulted on their HUD-guaranteed mortgages. Specialists like Thompson were tasked with ensuring the sale of these properties at the best possible price to reimburse the government for taxpayer funds made to mortgage lenders for insured loans. Instead, he funneled portions of the proceeds into bank accounts he controlled, netting himself $843,000 in the process.

Thompson scheme went undetected for nearly a year. To conceal his fraud, he fabricated settlement documents with false sales prices and even buyer names.

A fish rots from the head.