Ex-juvenile lifer pleads guilty in Montco to stealing $95K in COVID relief funds to pay his credit card debt
Vernon Steed used the identities of people he met while working as an addiction counselor to apply for rental assistance during the pandemic, prosecutors said.
A Lansdale man pleaded guilty to stealing nearly $95,000 in rental-assistance funding meant to help landlords during the COVID-19 pandemic, money that he and his wife used to pay off their credit card debt.
Vernon Steed, 56, entered the plea Tuesday to dealing in unlawful proceeds, conspiracy, theft by deception, and related crimes not long after the start of what was expected to be a three-day trial before Montgomery County Court Judge Thomas DelRicci.
Steed, a former juvenile lifer, spent 32 years in state prison for killing a bystander in a North Philadelphia shooting but was freed in 2018 after a U.S. Supreme Court decision triggered a hearing in which he was released on time served.
But his new conviction in Montgomery County is a violation of his parole, prosecutors said, and he may soon find himself back behind bars.
As of Wednesday, Steed remained free on bail, awaiting sentencing in the theft case in which prosecutors say he and his wife, Mary, stole $94,785. His attorney, Edward Foster, did not respond to a request for comment.
County officials discovered the scheme after learning that 10 applications for pandemic rental assistance were made on behalf of a single landlord, a then-deceased woman who was Steed’s sister-in-law, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest.
Investigators learned that none of the tenants listed on the applications lived at the addresses in question, and the woman listed as the landlord did not own the properties.
Assistant District Attorney Gwendolyn Kull said Steed’s actions unlawfully diverted money intended to help landlords who were struggling during the pandemic lockdown and the moratoriums on rent payments that came with it.
“By taking that money, that was nearly $95,000 that couldn’t go to people who were in need at the time,” she said. “And not only did he take that money, he and his wife used it for their personal gain and exploited people in addiction in order to perpetuate their fraud.”
As part of their scheme, Steed paid people he met as a counselor at a halfway house in Pottstown to give him their personal information and used their identities to fraudulently represent that they were tenants of the rental properties, the affidavit said.
When interviewed by investigators, some of those people said Steed had paid as much as $800 for their information and promised to get them government funding if they agreed to “keep it quiet.”
Mary Steed pleaded guilty to theft and related crimes last year, court records show. She spent 60 days in county jail, and must serve the remainder of her 7-to-23-month sentence on house arrest.