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AUSTIN WEEKLY news ■
Vol. 31 No.32
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New Wintrust bank lays roots on West Side,
August 9, 2017
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austinweeklynews.com
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Also serving Garfield Park
@AustinWeeklyChi
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@AustinWeeklyNews
Amara on bbudgets, d capital, page 3
Austin pastor pleads guilty to food program fraud Rev. Robbie and Tasha Wilkerson, and three co-defendants, allegedly pocketed $450K for personal expenses By MICHAEL ROMAIN Staff Reporter
A pastor, his wife and three associates who were charged in September 2015 with defrauding a federal summer food program for low-income children out of roughly $450,000 pleaded guilty to multiple charges earlier this year. According to a statement released by the Department of Justice on May 30, Rev. Robbie Wilkerson, 49, the founding pastor of New Birth Christian Center in Austin, pleaded guilty to wire fraud and money laundering. Wilkerson’s wife, Tasha, 44, pleaded guilty to theft of government funds. Three of the Oak Park couple’s associates— Downers Grove pastor Anthony Hall, 54; Richard Shumate, 51, and a program operations manager for the food program; and his wife, Evelyn Shumate, 48, who was an assistant for the program—each pleaded guilty to one count of theft of government funds. According to a 2015 indictment, Wilkerson filed paperwork in 2010 for New Birth to administer the Summer Food Service Program, which is offered by an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The pastor submitted an operating budget of $446,440 to the Illinois State Board of Education, which administered funding for the federal food program at the state level. But by the time the program had ended, the indictment claimed, Wilkerson and his co-defendants had allegedly made $700,000 worth of false claims. See GUILTY PLEA on page 9
WILLIAM CAMARGO/Photographer
HARVEST TIME: West Side entrepreneur Marseil Jackson, founder of Rental Harvest, which may be the nation’s only blackowned rent reporting service. The company allows renters to integrate their rent payments into their credit histories.
Businessman wants renters to reap what they sow By MICHAEL ROMAIN Editor
According to a December 2016 study produced by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB), an estimated 26 million people in the U.S. don’t have credit histories with any of the three national credit reporting companies. Less than three months ago, Leonard Dew, 46,
was among them. “I had never in my life used credit,” said Dew, an auto mechanic who owns a body shop. “When I was younger, I had child support to pay and once they run your credit and see you got child support nobody wants anything to do with you. So I always paid cash — for everything.” Two months ago, Dew overheard West Side businessman Marseil Jackson,
29, talking to a mutual friend of theirs about a new company Jackson had started called Rental Harvest, which allows renters to build their credit histories by applying the past two years of rent payments to their credit reports. In order to apply for the service, landlords or property managers are required to verify the
Austin Chamber of Commerce on the move... 773.854.5848 • www.austinchicagochamber.com
See RENTAL HARVEST on page 6