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![](\"https:\/\/fortune.com\/img-assets\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/06\/Barbara_Furlow_Smiles-.png?w=2048\")
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A former diversity and inclusion manager at Facebook<\/a> and Nike<\/a> has been sentenced to five years and three months in prison for stealing more than $5 million from the tech giant to \u201cfund a luxury lifestyle\u201d.<\/p>\n Barbara Furlow-Smiles, who pleaded guilty to wire fraud in the case in December, stole more than $4.9 million that had been earmarked for DEI initiatives from Facebook after apparently getting \u201ccaught up\u201d in the company\u2019s \u201cmove fast and break things\u201d culture.<\/p>\n The 38-year-old served as lead strategist and global head of employee resource groups and diversity engagement at the social media giant from 2017 to 2021, before being fired.\u00a0<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear whether Furlow-Smiles was let go from Facebook because of this fraud, but she then joined Nike, where she continued to \u201cbrazenly\u201d swindle a six-figure sum from the sportswear giant\u2019s diversity program until 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cFurlow-Smiles shamelessly violated her position of trust as a DEI executive at Facebook to steal millions from the company utilizing a scheme involving fraudulent vendors, fake invoices, and cash kickbacks,\u201d U.S. Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan said in a statement.<\/a><\/p>\n Furlow-Smiles, who lives in Marietta, Ga. was sentenced in Atlanta federal court in May and ordered to hand back the cash, including over $121,000 to Nike.<\/p>\n \u201cShe not only threw away a lucrative career, but will serve time behind bars for her excessive greed,\u201d Keri Farley, Special Agent in Charge of FBI Atlanta concluded.\u00a0<\/p>\n Furlow-Smiles was able to steal from Facebook, now Meta, because she was a senior member of staff with access to company credit cards and the authority to sign off invoices\u2014or, in this case, fake invoices from vendors who were her family and friends.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cBut these individuals did not provide goods or services to the company,\u201d\u00a0 the attorney\u2019s office noted.<\/a><\/p>\n Once Facebook paid the vendors\u2014who included her former interns, a hairstylist, baby-sitters, nannies and even her university tutor\u2014she directed they send her a portion of the money they received.<\/p>\n Often kickbacks were paid in cash, sometimes delivered wrapped in T-shirts, or through transfers to accounts held in her husband\u2019s and others\u2019 names.\u00a0<\/p>\n Not only did Furlow-Smiles cover her tracks by submitting fake expense reports, she also directed associates to pay one another, or others who she owed money.\u00a0<\/p>\n But, according to the attorney\u2019s office, \u201cmost\u201d of her associates \u201cdid not know that the payments came from Facebook.\u201d<\/p>\n Furlow-Smiles also misled Facebook into paying pay third parties for personal goods or services that did not provide kickbacks, including nearly $10,000 to an artist for specialty portraits and more than $18,000 to an unnamed preschool for tuition.<\/p>\n \u201cI blew it big time,\u201d Furlow-Smiles admitted in a letter to the judge in her case, adding that her actions \u201cadded fuel to the fire of disengagement and attack of DEI efforts<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n But the disgraced DEI officer failed to show any regret in Nike\u2019s eyes.\u00a0<\/p>\n\nHow did she do it?\u00a0<\/h2>\n
She got caught up in Facebook\u2019s \u2018move fast and break things\u2019<\/h2>\n