Tracy Jones, a former Senior Vice President at the Atlanta Housing Authority, has been sentenced to prison and ordered to pay restitution for a scheme to fraudulently collect Section 8 housing assistance payments for her own rental property and family members, making fraudulent applications to collect pandemic relief funds, and committing mortgage fraud when refinancing her rental property.
Court documents say that from April 2017 to the time of her guilty plea in this case, Jones served as Senior Vice President over the Housing Choice Voucher Program at the Atlanta Housing Authority, overseeing one of the largest Section 8 programs in the country.
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development funds Section 8 programs, including rental assistance payments to landlords on behalf of low-income families and individuals. Section 8 funds are limited, and there is often a long waiting list of low-income families seeking acceptance into the program. Housing authority staff are generally prohibited from receiving Section 8 payments for their own properties, and Section 8 landlords are typically prohibited from leasing to their own family members.
“Jones violated the trust of the community, the taxpayers, and the needy families she was supposed to assist, using her senior position at one of the largest housing authorities to steal limited public funds,” said U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg. “Her theft of that money meant other members of the community went without much-needed relief. Our office will continue to vigorously act to hold people like Jones, who violate the public trust and pilfer from the treasury, accountable.”
Instead of upholding the integrity of the housing assistance program, Jones defrauded the program by using a series of falsified forms to have her family members admitted to the Section 8 program and then to receive Section 8 payments for them to live in her own rental house. To conceal her identity, Jones used a fake name and a shell business entity to execute housing authority documents. As a result, she improperly obtained more than $36,000 of Section 8 funds. Jones then obstructed subsequent investigations by submitting a false affidavit and convincing friends to lie and present false documents on her behalf.
“Tracy Jones abused a position of trust by diverting funds from multiple federal programs, undermining assistance intended for vulnerable communities and struggling businesses during the pandemic,” said Special Agent in Charge Jerome Winkle with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Office of Inspector General (OIG). “HUD OIG will continue to work with the U.S. Attorney’s Office and our law enforcement partners to aggressively pursue those who exploit HUD-funded programs for personal gain.”
At the same time, Jones used her shell business and another business to collect more than $27,000 from the U.S. Small Business Administration’s COVID-19 pandemic relief programs, falsely claiming that the businesses were functioning, had multiple employees, and received over $56,000 of gross revenues in 2019.
When the SBA denied one of Jones’s applications, she appealed the denial, falsely stating:
- “I am truly a[n] honest business owner[.]”
- “I hear the stories how people abused the PPP loans to establish a lavish lif[e] style. That is not me. My business is small and is growing, but I [am] one of the legitimate and honest business that can use all the help I can.”
- “I also serve a community of low income families in my business, renting one of my three homes to a low income family as well as serve other owners of low income rental properties.”
Jones also allegedly committed mortgage fraud when she refinanced her Section 8 rental property, falsely claiming on her application for a $219,780 loan that the property was her primary residence, that the residence was not a rental property, and that she did not own any other property.
On May 20, 2026, Tracy Denise Jones, 61, of Atlanta, Georgia, was sentenced to 9 months in prison to be followed by 9 months of home detention and 15 months of supervised release, and ordered to pay restitution of $65,598.80 and a fine of $63,546.
She pled guilty on February 2, 2026, to conspiracy to commit theft of government funds, wire fraud, and credit application fraud.
This case was investigated by the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Office of Inspector General.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Garrett L. Bradford prosecuted the case.
On May 17, 2021, the Attorney General established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to marshal the resources of the Department of Justice in partnership with agencies across government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud. The Task Force bolsters efforts to investigate and prosecute the most culpable domestic and international criminal actors and assists agencies tasked with administering relief programs to prevent fraud by, among other methods, augmenting and incorporating existing coordination mechanisms, identifying resources and techniques to uncover fraudulent actors and their schemes, and sharing and harnessing information and insights gained from prior enforcement efforts. For more information on the Department’s response to the pandemic, please visit https://www.justice.gov/coronavirus
Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the Department of Justice’s National Center for Disaster Fraud (NCDF) Hotline at 866-720-5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at: https://www.justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.
For further information please contact the U.S. Attorney’s Public Affairs Office at USAGAN.PressEmails@usdoj.gov or (404) 581-6016. The Internet address for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia is http://www.justice.gov/usao-ndga.
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