Johnson Joy departs from position as Ben Carson’s chief information officer after the Guardian disclosed link to colleague accused of fraud

One of the most senior officials in Ben Carson’s housing department has lost his job after the Guardian disclosed his link to a colleague accused of fraud and a federal watchdog received allegations of corruption in his office.

Johnson Joy departed from his position as chief information officer at Carson’s Department for Housing and Urban Development (Hud) on Tuesday. A Hud spokesman said Carson accepted Joy’s resignation. Two sources familiar with the situation said Joy was escorted from the department headquarters by security.

Johnson Joy departed on Tuesday. Photograph: Hud

Joy had been running an opaque religious charity with Naved Jafry, a senior adviser to Joy at Hud, who previously resigned after the Guardian found he had exaggerated his biography and been repeatedly sued for alleged fraud.

Joy’s departure on Tuesday came as the Guardian was preparing a new article on a complaint filed by Joy’s former executive assistant, which alleged that she was fired from her job because she raised concerns about possible corruption in Joy’s office.

Katrina Hubbard said she was reassigned from her position and then terminated altogether in January soon after she raised the alarm within Hud about an apparent misuse of public funds.



“I reported information about fraud, waste and abuse, and as a result I was retaliated against,” Hubbard told the Guardian.



Hubbard’s case is being investigated by the office of special counsel (OSC), which oversees federal workers’ employment rights. Last month the Guardian revealed that the OSC was investigating a complaint from Helen Foster, a senior Hud official, who said she was demoted for refusing to break a legal spending cap on improvements to Carson’s office.



A spokesperson for OSC declined to comment.

The complaint follows reports that Donald Trump is considering removing Carson after a series of embarrassments, including his office ordering a $31,000 dining set.



Hubbard said in her complaint, which was seen by the Guardian, that she became a civil servant at Hud in September last year and worked as executive assistant to Johnson Joy, Hud’s chief information officer. She had previously done the job as a contract worker for Joy and his predecessor.



She said she discovered that Accel Corporation, a contractor that supplies Joy’s office with staff, was being systematically overpaid. Some Accel subcontractors were falsely classed in higher pay grades, she said, while some billed for days and hours they had not worked. Jafry, the adviser who resigned, was an Accel subcontractor.



Katrina Hubbard said she was fired after raising the alarm. Photograph: Handout

Hubbard said she told Hud’s inspector general of her findings on 8 January this year.



Stacye Loman, the owner of Accel Corporation, did not respond to requests for comment.



Over the following two days, Joy and deputy chief information officer Kevin Cooke held a pair of meetings that appeared on their schedules as “classified issue”, according to screenshots taken by Hubbard. On the third day, Hubbard said, she received a memo telling her that she was being reassigned from her job. Less than a month later, she was fired.



A termination letter given to Hubbard said she was being fired because of her performance. “I was never informed of any problems with my performance,” she told OSC, and had received a raise in her contract pay last year in recognition of her good work.



While testifying to a House subcommittee on Tuesday, Carson appeared to blame his wife, Candy, for ordering the $31,000 dining set, which he has since said he is trying to cancel.

Carson said that after browsing some possible options, he became busy with other duties. “I left it with my wife,” he said. In an August 2017 email released last month, a Hud official wrote that “the secretary and Mrs Carson picked out” the furniture.

In the latest of several explanations given for the expenditure, Carson said on Tuesday that his existing furniture had become unsafe. “People had been stuck by nails, a chair had collapsed with somebody sitting in it,” he said.