Records indicate that claims of fraud by Pulaski County Judge Barry Hyde and Fred Love are a smokescreen to hide their own wrongdoings

As we stated in our previous story about the pandemonium at Pulaski County Housing, we broke that story back on July 31st.

 

 

That individual asked our Russ Racop to assist her and represent her at her administrative hearing.

In response to our getting involved in assisting a woman falsely accused of illegal activities in regard to her application for housing assistance, Pulaski County Officials were so flustered that they exposed themselves and violated privacy rights of 141 citizens illegally releasing their social security number, driver's license number, date of birth, address, email address, phone number and income.

In response to a verbal FOI request for records, Love sent us unredacted information that violated Arkansas laws and Federal laws.

Victims of this illegal action are considering a class action lawsuit.

 

 

 

 

The county held it's first administrative hearing on Friday, August 4th. 

Racop assisted that individual and learned great deal about what led up the the voucher termination letters and the operation of the housing department.

Additional information was obtained by Racop in another hearing held today.

Back in October 2021, the Pulaski County Housing Agency had an on-line sign up form for Section 8 Housing / Housing Choice Voucher ("HCV") Program. 

The sign up period was limited and Pulaski County Housing says this is that list.

Pulaski County Housing says this list was closed in November 2021 and the only way to get added to it is if an individual is homeless under HUD guidelines or HUD declares and emergency (like a natural disaster, e.g., Hurricane Katrina).

We obtained updates to that closed list via a FOI request. Love says these lists are fraudulent. He could not offer any list other than the October 2021 one as a "valid" list.

Apparently there is no point in any individual making an application for Section 8/HCV unless they can document that they are homeless, under HUD guidelines as the waiting list is closed.

Love's agency administrated two programs that specifically were targeted to homeless individuals - ESG (Emergency Service Grant) and TBRA (Tenant Based Rental Assistance).

Love testified that ESG has no funding and blamed a former employee for dishing out the funds too quickly. He also blamed the Department of Human Services saying they owed him $20,000 for that now defunct program. 

TBRA is without an administrator (Love fired her) and that program is on hold.

In reviewing the two application files involved in the hearings Racop participated in, he found that many documents were incomplete or blank.

Some documents Love introduced as evidence that were missing signatures and he claimed that was in  part of why the files were suspicious and vouchers cancelled, had been provided to Racop in a FOI response and those copies had all the signatures. Racop introduced those documents into evidence.

These hearing revealed how incompetent Love was and is as a director of the agency. If staff don't see eye to eye on everything with him, they are declared "a bad fit" and fired. 

Former employees, fired ones and ones that resigned for better jobs,  have provided information about how poorly that agency is operated.

At the Friday hearing Love testified that employees were recently fired that were suspected of wrongdoing in the Section 8/HCV program. Letters he and County Judge Barry Hyde sent to county, state and federal officials implied that.

In the hearing held today, Love testified that the employees had been fired for another reason, and he did not discover the current situation until after they had been fired.

And according to testimony Love made in another hearing this afternoon, his narrative changes after each hearing. That voucher cancellation victim called Racop and gave him a detailed report of what occurred in the hearing.

What Hyde and Love won't tell you is that the employees that were recently fired and defamed in all these letters, is that they had requested a meeting with Hyde to detail illegal activities of Love.  When Love learned of the meeting, he terminated the employees.

One of the allegations involved Love and county attorney Veletta Smith.

Smith fabricated an eviction of an individual (her daughter-in-law)

to created an emergency to get approval of another individual (her son) for a Section 8/HCV voucher. 

 

Smith used her county email address for all the activity.

 

 

Her son had lived at residence owned by Smith for many years. Court records and police reports confirm that.

 

 

Smith was not representing the county at the hearing today. 

Racop had filed a complaint about a conflict of interest concerning Smith and the hearing official Pamela Abrams.

At the hearing today Abrams showed her ass and exemplified why she should be replaced (her ranting will be uploaded later). She went off about Racop's email and stated she was going to recuse from all these hearing.

The stand in county attorney pointed out that Abram's was the only individual that was approved to conduct these hearings and the hearing went on.

Love and the county are using these hearing to satisfy HUD requirements and questions program applicants to try and get information they can use to try and find something to put blame on former and current employees to protect Love and Hyde. None of these individuals are going to win their appeal, even if they qualify for the program. Watch and see.

Both Hyde and Love need to man up and take responsibility and resign.

If not, there is a way to get them out of office. And it will be easy to do.

 Stay tuned. More is coming.