US Attorney Bill Essayli found some of Gavin Newsom's missing $24 billion homeless money
— Wall Street Apes (@WallStreetApes) February 13, 2026
A downtown Los Angeles developer of affordable housing units was paid $26 million dollars directly from a California state agency
“The developer did not complete the construction — he stole… pic.twitter.com/vZtOw2sQ3i
US Attorney Bill Essayli "currently serves as the First Assistant United States Attorney for the Central District of California. He previously served as the interim United States attorney for the Central District of California from April to July 2025."
California state officials failed to provide meaningful oversight over the individuals who received most of these funds and they had little to no answers to the Public's demand for accountability. Well, that accountability starts today. We are making public two criminal cases relating to two separate real estate developers who are involved in misappropriating millions of State funds intended to combat homelessness. This morning, federal agents arrested Cody Holmes, a 31-year-old Beverly Hills resident and the former CFO of Shangri-La Industries, a downtown LA based developer of affordable housing, for defrauding the "Homekey" program that is administered by the state of California. The program awarded grant money, which included federal tax dollars for specific projects to convert motels into housing for the homeless and to operate the units. By April of 2022, Shangri-La Industries, where Holmes was the CFO, had co-applied with multiple California cities to convert numerous properties in California, including a location in Thousand Oaks. The state asked for proof that the company had the financial capacity to build all the projects. In response, Holmes and Shangri-La knowingly submitted fake bank statements which claimed to show the developer had about a $160 million on deposit. Not only were the bank statements fake, our investigation shows Shangri-La and it's affiliates had nowhere near the amount of money they claimed they had in the fake bank statements. The state agency ultimately paid nearly $26 million directly to the developer for the Thousand Oaks project. Even though the developer received all the money from the state, the developer did not complete the construction of the Thousand Oaks project. Instead, our investigation has shown that at least $2.2 million was diverted to pay Mr Holmes's American Express bill; essentially, he stole the money.
