DETROIT – An ex-Wayne County Treasurer’s Office employee and a former Detroit nonprofit director were both sentenced Wednesday to serve time in federal prison following their convictions in a 2024 bribery scheme to defraud low-income homeowners facing tax foreclosure.
Zina Thomas, 60, of Detroit, served as the director of homeownership programs for the United Community Housing Coalition (UCHC) when she conspired with county employee Jontae Jackson, 45, of Southfield, to steal approximately 100 properties from homeowners across Wayne County, mostly in Detroit.
Federal officials say Thomas identified properties facing potential tax foreclosure and diverted them into her control by filing multiple fraudulent quitclaim deeds. Thomas, who was also working as a real estate agent at the time, would then transfer ownership of the target properties to non-existent “interim owners” before selling them to third parties.
“Thomas bribed Jackson to upload false documentation — including fake driver’s licenses, utility bills, and Principal Residence Exemption forms — into Wayne County’s Property Tax Administration system, which Jackson then used to halt the pending foreclosures," A statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office read on Wednesday. “This process prevented dozens of properties from being auctioned off, depriving Wayne County of an estimated $1.5M in tax revenue.
The total estimated value of the properties was around $6.5 million, federal investigators said. Thomas received payment for at least some of the properties via wire transfer into a bank account in the same name of her realty company. The funds were then transferred to her personal bank account. Officials said Thomas currently lives in one of the properties involved in the scheme.
Thomas was sentenced to 90 months in federal prison for federal program bribery, and Jackson was sentenced to 66 months for conspiracy to commit bribery and aggravated identity theft.
The case was investigated by the FBI with assistance by the Wayne County Register of Deeds’ Mortgage and Deed Fraud Unit.