NOPD officer charged with stealing Road Home funds


Officer Tracie Medus, a 17-year NOPD veteran, was suspended without pay Tuesday after the U.S. attorney's office charged her with stealing funds from the post-Katrina recovery program Road Home. Her attorney said she is cooperating with investigators. (NOPD yearbook)
 By Naomi Martin, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune
A New Orleans police officer is charged with stealing $158,700 from the state's Road Home recovery program created after Hurricane Katrina.
Tracie Medus, an officer for 17 years, was suspended without pay Tuesday after federal prosecutors charged her with theft of government funds, authorities said. Her attorney, Townsend Myers, said she is cooperating with prosecutors.
Medus, 39, is accused of taking money between July 2009 and March 2011 from the Road Home's small rental property program. She "knew she was not entitled" to the funds, which were awarded through the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, according to prosecutors. Read the charging papers here.
The program, which is aimed at shoring up more affordable housing for low to middle-income renters, provides small-time landlords forgivable loans to restore rental properties that were destroyed. In exchange, the landlords must agree to rent the property at relatively low, set rates to tenants who meet certain income requirements.
According to a source close to Medus, she restored her properties and rented them out. But prosecutors allege that she overcharged her tenants in rent and at least one of her tenants did not meet the income eligibility rules for the program, the source said.
Medus plans to repay the money, her lawyer says.
"We are working with the United States government and the Road Home program to repay all loan monies received and to achieve a result that is fair both to the government and to Officer Medus," Myers said.
If convicted as charged, Medus faces up to 10 years in prison and a fine of up to twice the amount stolen, prosecutors in U.S. Attorney Kenneth Polite's office said.
During the investigation, the NOPD in August placed Medus on administrative reassignment, or desk duty. She was most recently assigned to the NOPD's 6th District, which covers the Garden District and Central City, said department spokesman Tyler Gamble.
In March 2012, the department suspended Medus for three days for arguing with her supervisor and calling him "ADD--Attention Deficit Disorder," according to a story by