Last week, Attorney General Martha Coakley announced an indictment against a Chelsea-area property owner and real estate broker accused of procurement fraud and falsifying a lead inspection report.
Nidia Peguero, 39, of Chelsea, was indicted on Thursday by a Suffolk County Grand Jury. The charges against her include two counts of Procurement Fraud and Uttering False or Forged Records.
“Exposure to lead can be extremely dangerous, especially for young children,” Coakley said. “We allege that this defendant falsified a lead inspection report in order to be able to accept government-funded housing assistance payments from a tenant with three children under six years old.”
The investigation began after the Department of Public Health referred the matter to the AG’s Office. According to authorities, Peguero, a licensed realtor, submitted a falsified lead inspection compliance letter in October 2011 for a Chelsea property owned by her husband to the Metropolitan Boston Housing Partnership (MBHP). The purpose was to enable him to qualify as a landlord eligible for government-funded rental assistance payments.
As a regional administrator for the state Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD), MBHP manages both the Section 8 and HomeBase housing assistance programs throughout the Boston metropolitan area. To become eligible for rental assistance payments, landlords must provide appropriate documentation to MBHP. When children under age six will occupy a unit, landlords must additionally submit documentation confirming that a passing lead paint inspection was performed on the property.
When a tenant at the Chelsea property with three children under age six applied for housing assistance, MBHP received a lead inspection compliance letter from Peguero purportedly signed by a licensed lead inspector. However, MBHP and inspectors from the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s Child Lead Poisoning Prevention Program reviewed the letter and determined it to be fraudulent. Investigators allege that Peguero altered a legitimate lead inspection report originally prepared for her parents for a different property and then submitted this falsified document to MBHP.
Investigators also discovered that Peguero had submitted the same forged lead letter to Children’s Services of Roxbury in May 2010 to obtain payments under Flex Fund, another state housing subsidy program administered by DHCD.
Peguero’s arraignment in Suffolk Superior Court is scheduled for a future date.
Assistant Attorney General Andrew Rainer, Chief of the AG’s Environmental Crimes Strike Force, is prosecuting the case with support from the Massachusetts Environmental Police and the Childhood Lead Poisoning Prevention Program of the Department of Public Health, which works to prevent, screen, diagnose and treat lead poisoning and identify potential sources of lead exposure.