Atlanta, Ga. (AP) – Tiffany Brown, 45, has been convicted by a federal jury of defrauding the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) through a fraudulent $156 million contract to supply self-heating meals in Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria in 2017.
Brown, a resident of Atlanta and owner of Tribute Contracting LLC, submitted a false proposal claiming her company could deliver 10 million meals daily and had partnered with a logistics firm to fulfill the contract. FEMA awarded Tribute Contracting a $155.9 million contract in October 2017 to supply 40 million self-heating meals weekly, but Brown failed to deliver the agreed-upon compliant meals.
On October 19, 2017, FEMA terminated the contract after paying Brown $255,000 for 50,000 non-compliant dehydrated meals. The company’s failure to meet contractual obligations led to its cancellation.
In addition to defrauding FEMA, Brown fabricated documents and misrepresented information to secure $700,000 in litigation financing from Litigation Funding Group (LFG). She falsely claimed to LFG that she had a $5 million settlement with Total Quality Logistics (TQL), alleging the company had failed to deliver meals in a timely manner. However, TQL had obtained a default judgment against Brown for unpaid deliveries.
The scheme began to unravel when Brown’s alleged settlement failed to materialize, and investigators uncovered that Brown had created a fake persona, “James Wilson,” pretending to be an attorney from TQL to continue her deception.
Brown faces major disaster fraud, theft of government money, and money laundering charges. Her conviction serves as a reminder of the ongoing efforts to hold individuals accountable for defrauding taxpayer-funded disaster relief programs.
