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HOA

Businessperson's hand placing house model over red HOA blocks on wooden desk, Adobe Stock image

published on March 10, 2023 - 2:21 PM
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A Fresno woman pleaded guilty Thursday to embezzling more than $1 million from her Minnesota-based employer, a property management firm overseeing homeowners’ associations (HOAs).

Mai Houa Xiong, 47, was employed as a financial manager for the Minneapolis company that provided financial services to HOAs throughout the Twin Cities area. Her duties gave her access to the HOAs’ financials, bank accounts and vendor and contractor payments, according to a news release from Minnesota U.S. Attorney Andrew M. Luger.

For seven years beginning February 2015, Xiong executed a scheme to steal money from HOAs. The money represented fees collected from residents for maintenance, construction and other costs incurred by the victim HOAs.

As part of the scheme, Xiong repeatedly accessed bank accounts and conducted electronic transfers directly into her personal accounts. Xiong disguised these transfers by mislabeling them as if they were legitimate HOA expenses. Xiong also used her authority as a signatory to make cash withdrawals directly from the HOAs’ accounts, including after she was fired from her position in July 2021.

After her termination, Xiong began collecting unemployment insurance benefits, according to court records. However, even after Xiong found new employment, she continued to wrongfully obtain these public benefits.

Xiong pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court before Chief Judge Patrick J. Schiltz to one count of wire fraud, one count of aggravated identity theft and one count of making and subscribing a false tax return. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled at a later date.

The case is the result of an investigation conducted by the IRS – Criminal Investigations, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension and the Minneapolis Police Department.


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