Former Mental Health and Community Residence Facility Director Accused of Financial Exploitation of a Vulnerable Adult and Elderly Person

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Thursday, August 18, 2022

Defendant Accused of Using Money for Personal Expenses

            WASHINGTON – Latonja Dashawn Carrera, also known as Latonja Dashawn Martin, 46, of Camp Springs, Maryland, has been indicted on two felony counts and three misdemeanor counts of financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult or elderly person.

            The announcement was made today by U.S. Attorney Matthew M. Graves and Daniel W. Lucas, Inspector General for the District of Columbia. 

            The indictment was returned on Aug. 17, 2022, by a grand jury in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia. According to court documents, Carrera was the Administrator for a Mental Health Community Residential Facility (MH-CRF) in Southeast Washington, licensed by the District of Columbia Department of Behavioral Health.  As alleged in court documents, beginning in January 2019, Carrera used the bank account of a MH-CRF resident – a veteran who at the time was 73 years old – to pay for her own personal utility and credit card bills.

            In total, Carrera is accused of completing five fraudulent transactions in January and February of 2019 in the amount of $3,090.14 using the veteran’s account, whose sole sources of income were benefits from the Social Security Administration and Veterans Affairs.

            Carrera was arrested in December 2020.

            Carrera is scheduled to be arraigned before the Honorable Judge Michael K. O’Keefe on Aug. 24, 2022.  An indictment is merely an allegation, and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.

            In announcing the indictment, U.S. Attorney Graves and Inspector General Lucas commended the work of those who are investigating and prosecuting the case from the Office of the Inspector General’s Medicaid Fraud Control Unit (MFCU), and the Major Crimes Section of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.  They also acknowledged the efforts of Special Assistant United States Attorney Jason Facci, on detail from the Office of the Inspector General, who is prosecuting the case, and MFCU Special Agent Jonathan Rich, who is investigating the matter. They also recognized the work of the Office of the Attorney General for the District of Columbia, which initiated this case, and the D.C. Adult Protective Services, which referred this matter for investigation.