A former diversity manager at Facebook and Nike was sentenced to prison on Monday after a $5 million kickback and fraud scheme fell apart.
Barbara Furlow-Smiles, 38, of Marietta, Georgia, will serve five years and three months in prison, after which she will have three years of supervised release, according to a Department of Justice news release.
Furlow-Smiles also has to cough up almost $5 million to Facebook and over $120,000 to Nike after her conviction on a wire fraud charge in December, to which she pleaded guilty.
That amounts to what Furlow-Smiles took from Facebook and Nike “to fund a luxury lifestyle in California, Georgia, and Oregon,” the release said.
“Furlow-Smiles shamelessly violated her position of trust as a DEI executive at Facebook to steal millions from the company utilizing a scheme involving fraudulent vendors, fake invoices, and cash kickbacks,” U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan said.
“After being terminated from Facebook, she brazenly continued the fraud as a DEI leader at Nike, where she stole another six-figure sum from their diversity program,” he continued. “Her prison sentence reflects the consequences of her decision to orchestrate an intricate scheme to defraud two of her employers for personal profit.”
Furlow-Smiles led diversity, equity, and inclusion programs at Facebook from January 2017 to September 2021. She used her job to have Facebook pay multiple people and businesses for goods or services that were never provided, and then give her a share of the cash, the release said.
Furlow-Smiles submitted fraudulent expense reports, claiming that those in on the scheme worked on programs and events even when they had not.
“After these individuals received the payments from Facebook, they returned the vast majority of the money to Furlow-Smiles,” the release said, noting she was repaid in cash that was sometimes wrapped in other objects such as T-shirts.
Is the DEI industry a scam?
Furlow-Smiles also led Facebook to onboard several vendors that were operated by friends, who then offered her kickbacks. Furlow-Smiles greenlit fraudulent invoices for these vendors, and after Facebook paid the invoices, she told the vendors to send back a share of the funds to her.
Those involved in the scheme were “friends, relatives, former interns from a prior job, nannies and babysitters, a hair stylist, and her university tutor,” the release said.
She also spent money on herself, the document added, including nearly $10,000 to an artist for portraits and more than $18,000 for preschool tuition.
Furlow-Smiles was fired from Facebook but received a new position at Nike, where she worked in a similar role from November 2021 to February 2023 and operated the same scheme, the release said.
DEI is a massive grift. Barbara Furlow-Smiles, who ran DEI programs for Facebook and Nike has been sentenced to five years in prison and ordered to pay back $5 million she used to fund a “luxury lifestyle.”
“Furlow-Smiles shamelessly violated her position of trust as a DEI… pic.twitter.com/Cb0AeTKZkO
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) May 17, 2024
A sentencing memo said Facebook learned that Furlow-Smiles started the scheme soon after she was initially hired, and that an investigation found she had “manipulated individuals who were close to, and trusted her, including former interns” who saw her as a mentor, according to CNBC.
Nike also informed prosecutors that her “complete lack of accountability or remorse was incredibly disappointing,” the memo noted.
Phillip Hamilton, a lawyer representing Furlow-Smiles, said his client does not deserve prison time, according to the Los Angeles Times.
Hamilton said Furlow-Smiles was not the only one at Facebook to act in such a way, claiming her behavior was “the norm.”
The attorney asserted she “quickly learned that coworkers were friends with vendors and relied on these vendors to do certain things, which included providing kickbacks for referring Facebook business to them.”
