A Western suburban Chicago man has been indicted by the federal government for allegedly defrauding a Central Illinois school district out of thousands of dollars over 4 years ago.
46-year old Naron Harris of Glen Ellyn has been charged with two counts of wire fraud and a single count of money laundering.
Federal charging documents say that between December 2019 and August 5, 2020 that Harris, representing himself as the owner of Kayoz Home Group, emailed administrators with North Mac School District saying that payment information for Holland Construction Services had changed.
Holland had been contracted by the North Mac School District in 2018 to construct an addition and renovate portions of North Mac High School.
Through the fraudulent email, Harris provided a new routing and account number to a branch of Navy Federal Credit Union that he had control. Harris’ email was able to defraud the school district out of more than $356,000.
The indictment says that the money laundering charge says that Harris then attempted to filter the money back to himself by conducting a wire transfer of $120,000 from the Navy Federal Credit Union account to a Bank of America account owned by Chicago Title Company.
The federal indictment is asking for forfeiture of an apartment and personal property of Harris’ at his Glen Ellyn address along with a 4 carat diamond ring wedding set, and any remaining money that Harris may possess.
Harris was arrested by federal agents at his home on Wednesday and appeared before Federal Judge Karen McNaught yesterday in Springfield.
He currently remains on federal hold until a pretrial detention hearing set for Monday. A pretrial date in the case has been set for September 5th.