ATLANTA — The U.S. Department of Justice announced two vendors and a former diversity manager were convicted of a conspiracy to defraud Facebook involving a kickback scheme.
Brice E. Anderson and Terrance Lockett have pleaded guilty to conspiring with Barbara Furlow-Smiles of Atlanta, a former diversity program manager at Facebook’s parent company Meta, to defraud the company, USDOJ said in a Thursday release.
Furlow-Smiles pled guilty to related charges in December 2023.
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According to justice officials, the fraud schemes involved creating fictitious invoices and paying cash kickbacks, allowing the defendants to steal significant sums of money from Facebook.
“These defendants conspired with a DEI executive at Facebook to steal significant sums from the company, based on false claims that they had worked on various DEI projects,” U.S. Attorney Theodore S. Hertzberg said.
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Furlow-Smiles was the Lead Strategist, Global Head of Employee Resource Groups and Diversity Engagement at Facebook, Inc., now known as Meta Platforms, Inc., from January 2017 to September 2021.
In that role, she led Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs at Facebook and was responsible for developing and executing DEI initiatives, operations, and engagement programs.
Furlow-Smiles used her positions at Facebook and Nike to cheat and defraud the companies by causing them to pay for goods and services that were never provided.
“Furlow-Smiles created a complex web of lies, all for her personal gain. Anderson and Lockett joined in this fraud for their own excessive greed,” FBI Atlanta Special Agent in Charge Paul Brown said.
Anderson owned Titan Branding LLC and conspired with Furlow-Smiles to fraudulently obtain nearly $1.2 million from Facebook, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
Anderson received fraudulent payments from Facebook and paid kickbacks to Furlow-Smiles in cash and through transfers to accounts held in the names of Furlow-Smiles’ husband and others, according to officials.
Lockett hosted a podcast called the “Officially Outed Podcast” and owned a business called Officially Outed Media.
Lockett conspired with Furlow-Smiles to steal over $243,000 from Facebook by claiming that Officially Outed Media had provided marketing services related to DEI events.
Furlow-Smiles was sentenced to five years, three months in prison and ordered to pay restitution totaling over $5 million, according to USAO.
USDOJ said sentencing for Anderson is scheduled for March 9, 2026, and for Lockett on Feb. 18, 2026.
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