A former property director for the Chicago Housing Authority is facing federal charges for allegedly funneling millions of dollars’ worth of work to the owner of a local construction company in exchange for $421,000 in kickbacks.
Ryan Ross — former CHA senior director of asset management — and Vanessa Rhodes have each been indicted on eight counts of honest services fraud, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois announced in a news release. Each fraud charge is punishable by up to 20 years in federal prison. The 22-page indictment was returned in federal court in Chicago on Tuesday, the U.S. attorney’s office said.
Ross, 50, is accused of receiving kickbacks between May 2023 and September 2024 from 47-year-old Rhodes, the president of Bell’s Better Buildings, a Chicago company that did business as Twenty Eleven Construction, per federal prosecutors.
In exchange for the kickbacks, Ross used his position as a top-ranking CHA director to fraudulently award more than $4.8 million in construction, renovation and other work to Twenty Eleven Construction and another company affiliated with Rhodes, federal prosecutors allege.
As part of Ross’ CHA employment, he worked with property managers on completing unit-turn work, which entails construction, renovation and other work needed on a public housing unit to make it ready for a new tenant, the indictment states. Ross was also responsible for the oversight of CHA property managers, selected vendor companies for unit-turn work and the approval of invoices for completed work.
Ross was terminated in September 2024 over an inspector general investigation that found alleged financial and ethical misconduct among several top CHA officials. Ross was fired for breaking agency procedures, including one that cost CHA over $19,000.
Federal prosecutors allege that Ross and Rhodes concealed their fraud scheme by submitting false documents to CHA, including proposals, scopes of work and invoices. Ross proceeded to spend some of the kickback money to purchase a vehicle for himself and pay for repairs and renovations to his home.
“They hijacked a program meant to repair and preserve Chicago’s already scarce public housing, diverting public funds to enrich themselves,” CHA Inspector General Kathryn Richards said in a statement.
Machelle Jindra, special agent in charge with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Office of Inspector General, said in a statement that Ross and Rhodes’ alleged scheme “corrupted the fair and competitive contracting process and undermined the confidence in the integrity of HUD-funded programs.”
Both Ross and Rhodes have been scheduled for an initial appearance and arraignment at 1 p.m. Friday at the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse, court records show.