Federal Judge Sentenced Detroit Housing Director Over What Investigators Found Under Her Own Roof

For years, a Detroit nonprofit promised struggling homeowners it would keep them out of foreclosure.

Its own director was quietly doing the opposite.

Now a federal judge has decided exactly what that betrayal is worth.

Nonprofit Director Turned Trusted Homeowner Program Into Personal Property Pipeline

Zina Thomas ran the homeownership program at Detroit's United Community Housing Coalition.

Her job was simple: keep low-income families in their houses when Wayne County came for unpaid taxes.

Instead, Thomas built a pipeline to steal those same houses out from under the people she was hired to protect.

She pulled county foreclosure records, targeted homes on the list, and filed fake quitclaim deeds transferring ownership to people who don't exist.

Then she flipped the properties to buyers who had no idea they were purchasing stolen homes.

For the families who actually lived in those houses, the first sign of trouble was often a stranger showing up with a new deed and an eviction notice.

By the time anyone checked the paperwork, the house had already changed hands two or three times on paper, with an "interim owner" who never existed standing between the real family and the buyer who paid cash for it.

To keep the scam running, Thomas bribed Jontae Jackson, a taxpayer assistant inside the Wayne County Treasurer's Office.

Jackson took the cash and uploaded fake driver's licenses and phony utility bills straight into the county's tax system.

That fake paperwork froze foreclosures on the exact properties Thomas needed pulled off the auction block.

Federal investigators say the scheme covered roughly 100 properties worth an estimated $6.4 million.

Wayne County lost an estimated $1.5 million in tax revenue while Thomas cashed in.

Court records in the related Kelly case show this conspiracy ran for months, not days.

One detail should make every Detroit taxpayer furious.

Thomas was living in one of the stolen houses when the FBI came knocking.

Third Defendant Reveals Scheme Reached Beyond City Employees

This wasn't a two-person operation.

Investment company owner Kevin Kelly was charged in March for paying Jackson and Thomas to strip properties off the foreclosure list so he could buy them himself.

Kelly allegedly handed a title company fake identification just to clear the paper trail on one property he wanted to resell.

Three separate players, one government system, and nobody at Wayne County caught it until federal agents did the job county officials should have done years earlier.

US Attorney Jerome Gorgon announced the sentences this week.

Federal Judge Robert White gave Thomas 90 months in prison for federal program bribery.

Jackson got 66 months for bribery conspiracy and aggravated identity theft.

FBI Special Agent in Charge Jennifer Runyan joined the announcement, and case records credit Wayne County's own Register of Deeds fraud unit with helping the FBI finally unravel a scheme that ran for years under the county's nose.

Wayne County and Detroit city government have been under one-party Democrat control for decades, and Treasurer Eric Sabree's own office is supposed to catch exactly this kind of fraud.

This is the same Wayne County Treasurer's Office that sends Detroiters strict deadlines and payment plan notices every year to avoid losing their homes.

One of its own employees was helping steal those homes the whole time.

Nonprofits like UCHC exist because government housing bureaucracy failed poor families once before.

Then the fix for the fix got infiltrated too.

Michigan's own Supreme Court ruled Wayne County kept too much of homeowners' money once before, in rulings that forced the county to start returning surplus foreclosure profits.

The county spent the last two years and millions of dollars trying to rebuild trust with families it had already burned.

This case blows a hole straight through that rebuilding effort.

That's not a technicality.

That's the entire premise of a "trusted community partner" collapsing in real time.

Every dollar Wayne County spent chasing this fraud is a dollar that never went toward legitimate foreclosure relief for families who actually needed it.

Most of the homeowners who lost houses to Thomas's fake deeds have almost no realistic path to getting them back, since the properties were already resold to buyers who didn't know any better.

Prosecutors call this "aggravated identity theft" and "federal program bribery."

Detroit families who lost their homes call it something simpler.

Getting robbed by the people paid to protect them.

Sources:

• Scott McClallen, "Detroit Non-Profit Director, County Employee Sentenced for Stealing 100 Properties in Bribery Scheme," Townhall, July 5, 2026.
• FOX 2 Detroit Staff, "Detroit nonprofit housing director stole over 30 properties in 'deed fraud' scheme, feds say," FOX 2 Detroit, February 28, 2024.
• U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of Michigan, "Local Non-Profit Director Charged in Pernicious 'Deed Fraud' Scheme Targeting Low Income Detroiters," U.S. Department of Justice, February 28, 2024.
• Detroit News Staff, "Wayne County bribery scandal widens as feds charge third person," The Detroit News, March 25, 2026.