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HOUSTON - Two former Harris County Tax Office employees and two business owners have been charged in a "brazen" scheme involving tens of thousands of dollars in bribes, authorities say.
4 charged in alleged scheme
According to the Harris County Pct. 1 Constable’s Office, 35-year-old Renisha T. Wilkins, 31-year-old Sarah A. Anderson, 51-year-old Oswaldo Perez, and 43-year-old Adriana De La Rosa are each charged with two counts of engaging in organized criminal activity.
Officials say Anderson and Wilkins were formerly employees of the tax office, and Perez and De La Rosa are owners of a South Houston vehicle title service company called Bella’s Multiservices.
Wilkins, Anderson and De La Rosa have been arrested, but Perez remains a fugitive, authorities say.
What you can do:
Anyone with information on Perez’s whereabouts is asked to contact the Pct. 1 Constable’s Office at (713)755-5200 and ask for the Special Investigations Unit at the tax office.
Social media trail leads to investigation
The allegations:
According to the constable’s office, the vehicle title service company owners allegedly paid the two tax office employees tens of thousands of dollars in bribes in exchange for processing vehicle registrations and title transfers without valid proof of insurance, emissions testing, inspections and residency requirements.
The tax office employees would also allegedly change vehicle owner information to Harris County addresses and zip codes in order to process fraudulent vehicle registration transactions.
Timeline:
The charges come after a two-year probe into the alleged scheme.
According to investigators, the scheme ran from at least November 2023 to April 2024, and the tax office employees were fired that month.
Bella’s Multiservices allegedly used TikTok and Facebook to advertise the ability to quickly get paperwork processed without the "BS" of meeting requirements, officials say.
Officials with another Texas county tax office saw the TikTok advertisements and reported them to state authorities. The state contacted the Special Investigations Unit at the Harris County Tax Office, which includes two Harris County Pct. 1 Constable’s Office detectives.
What they're saying:
"This involves public corruption by those who violated the people’s trust in government and abused their positions to line their own pockets," Harris County Constable Precinct One Alan Rosen said. "This scheme was brazen and the schemers will now face justice."
The Source: The information in this article comes from the Harris County Pct. 1 Constable's Office and court documents.