Charlotte council member indicted on federal COVID loan fraud charges
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Council member Tiawana Brown indicted
Charlotte City Council member Tiawana Brown has been indicted on federal COVID loan fraud charges.
This is a developing story.
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Charlotte council member indicted on federal COVID loan fraud charges
Who is Tiawana Brown? Charlotte City Council member facing wire fraud indictment
Yet another controversy hits Charlotte City Council as Tiawana Brown is indicted
How COVID relief funds were meant to be used, and how they were misused
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story included an incorrect photo.
Charlotte City Councilwoman Tiawana Brown threw herself a $15,000 birthday party with a throne and a horse-drawn carriage using COVID pandemic relief funds wired to her nonprofit, federal prosecutors say.
She and one of her daughters also are accused of using relief money to purchase items from luxury brand Louis Vuitton.
Brown, the first formerly incarcerated person elected to the council, has again been indicted. She and her daughters face federal charges of using fake, never-filed IRS forms and lying on loan applications for relief funds, according to a federal indictment filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina Thursday.
Brown, a 53-year-old Democratic council member, was elected to represent west Charlotte’s District 3 in 2023. During her 20s, Brown served four years in federal prison on felony fraud charges.
She was pregnant when a judge sentenced her. While incarcerated, she gave birth to one of her two daughters.
Now, Brown and her daughters — Tijema Brown, 30, and Antionette Rouse, 33 — could face a maximum of 20 years in prison for each of the two charges they face: wire fraud conspiracy and wire fraud used to falsely obtain pandemic relief loans.
In a statement, Tiawana Brown said she “characterizes [the charges] as a political attack and a deliberate effort to interfere with her re-election and silence her voice.”
Prosecutors say the trio filed 15 applications for loans from the Small Business Administration from April 2020 to September 2021. They “lied about gross income and number of employees to get about $125,000 through the federal government’s Economic Injury Disaster Loan Program and the Paycheck Protection Program,” prosecutors allege.
Court documents show that Tiawana Brown’s two disaster loan applications were rejected, but she received about $20,000 from a PPP loan.
Tijema Brown and Antionette Rouse both received more than $40,000 in forgiven PPP loans and $10,000 in disaster loans that were later retroactively rejected.
Brown says the allegations, which are based around events that happened before she was elected, are “unrelated to her tenure as a public official” and “do not reflect her current role, values, or service to the community.”
But Brown has platformed her nonprofit, which is now tied up in the fraud charges, through her position on the council.
Council member’s nonprofit tied up in fraud charges
According to the indictment, Tiawana and Tijema Brown on April 26, 2021, submitted a fake IRS Schedule C form under the councilwoman’s name for her business, “TC Collection.” They said the business made $100,000.
As a result of that application, a California-based company in May 2021 wired more than $20,000 to Tiawana Brown’s listed bank account. It was an account for her nonprofit, Beauty After The Bars.
That nonprofit has partnered with the Mecklenburg County Jail and Sheriff Garry McFadden to provide support to incarcerated women. Tiawana Brown has appeared in court to advocate for jailed women to be released into her program.
According to the indictment, the councilwoman took $15,000 out of the nonprofit’s account to pay for her birthday party a month after receiving the loan.
Prosecutors say she spent $3,500 on the venue, $5,000 on catering and $2,300 on balloons, a rose wall, a throne and a horse-drawn carriage.
Family charged with pandemic relief fraud
Prosecutors say Tiawana Brown first submitted a loan application on June 25, 2020, for a businesses she described as a $14,000 “personal services” business with 11 employees. Her daughter Tijema Brown claimed a separate business with the exact same revenue and employee base in an application submitted from the same IP address 13 minutes later. Antionette Rouse claimed a similar business the next day.
The daughters’ requests initially went through, and each received $10,000 wired to their bank accounts. But in July 2020, the Small Business Administration rejected both.
About two months went by. Then the family submitted more applications.
On Aug. 31, 2020, Tijema Brown used her middle name and her mother’s phone number to submit an application for a $134,000 health services business with five employees. It was rejected.
The next day, prosecutors say, Tiawana Brown submitted a loan application for a $142,000 “health services” business with eight employees. That was rejected, too.
Brown says she will not resign
At a news conference Thursday morning, Brown said she, a few months ago, paid back over $20,000 in loan money after learning her applications were under scrutiny.
She also questioned why the federal government brought civil charges against the owner of a barbecue restaurant in Gaston County who used pandemic money to buy a FedEx store, but indicted her on criminal charges.
“If it’s about justice and I paid it back, why are we here?” she said.
She said she planned to stay on the city council.
“Why would I resign? I haven’t been convicted of anything. I was elected for the people, by the people. The people would have to remove me out of the seat.”
This is a developing story.
This story was originally published May 22, 2025 at 8:13 AM.
