Legal/Law/Criminal Justice and Reform

Ex-Facebook Diversity Exec Pleads Guilty To Stealing Millions From Company

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Former Facebook global diversity executive Barbara Furlow-Smiles pleaded guilty to stealing millions from the social media company, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia.

Furlow-Smiles abused her position to embezzle over $4 million from Facebook through a complex scheme that included fake businesses, expenses and cash kickbacks, according to the Department of Justice(DOJ). She leveraged the stolen funds to live a lavish lifestyle in California and Georgia.

“This defendant abused a position of a trust as a global diversity executive for Facebook to defraud the company of millions of dollars, ignoring the insidious consequences of undermining the importance of her [Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI)] mission,” U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan stated. “Motivated by greed, she used her time to orchestrate an elaborate criminal scheme in which fraudulent vendors paid her kickbacks in cash. 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.”

Furlow-Smiles spearheaded DEI initiatives at Facebook and had access to the company’s credit cards as well as jurisdiction over purchases, according to the DOJ. She made Facebook pay a multitude of people for goods and services that the social media giant never received.

The recipients of the funds, which consisted of “friends, relatives, former interns from a prior job, nannies and babysitters, a hair stylist, and her university tutor” then paid cash kickbacks to Furlow-Smiles. She will face sentencing in March, according to the DOJ.

“Furlow-Smiles used lies and deceit to defraud both vendors and Facebook employees,” Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta Keri Farley stated. “The FBI works hard to make sure greed like this doesn’t pay off and those who commit fraud are held accountable.”

Facebook and Meta did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia declined to comment.