DEI manager Barbara Furlow-Smiles is sentenced to five years in jail for stealing from Facebook and Nike to fund her luxury lifestyle

A former DEI boss at Facebook and Nike got hit with more than five years in prison after she pleaded guilty in December to stealing over $5 million from both corporations.

Barbara Furlow-Smiles, 38, served as Lead Strategist, Global Head of Employee Resource Groups and Diversity Engagement at Facebook from about January 2017 to September 2021. 

During that time, she swiped more than $4.9 million from the social media giant to 'fund a luxury lifestyle in California, Georgia, and Oregon,' said the US Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia.

'Furlow-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,' US Attorney Ryan K. Buchanan said. 

After she was terminated from Facebook, she got hired at Nike as a diversity, equity and inclusion leader, only to start up a nearly identical scheme.

Former diversity executive at Facebook and Nike, Barbara Furlow-Smiles (pictured), was sentenced to five years and three months in prison for stealing more than $4.9 million from Facebook and over $121,000 from Nike

Furlow-Smiles stole more than $121,000 from Nike. 

She managed to swindle Facebook, now Meta, by being a trusted member of their staff who had access to company credit cards. 

The former diversity executive linked PayPal, Venmo, and Cash App accounts to her Facebook credit cards and used those accounts to pay friends, relatives, and other associates for goods and services that were never provided to Facebook. 

She covered her tracks by submitting fake expense reports, claiming that her associates worked on programs or events for Facebook when that was all bogus.

The other facet of her fraud was bring on vendors whom she was personally connected with to purportedly do work for Facebook. 

Furlow-Smiles would approve fake invoices from the vendors, and once Facebook paid them, she directed the vendors to send her a portion of the money they received. 

The so-called vendors included Furlow-Smiles' friends, relatives, interns from a former job, nannies and babysitters, a hair stylist, and even her university tutor. 

It's not clear if any of these people will face charges.

With Facebook's money, she also paid upwards of $10,000 to an artist for specialty portraits and more than $18,000 to a preschool for tuition.

She also got the company to make payments for her benefits in other ways including payments of more than $18,000 to a preschool for tuition

Once these individuals received payment from Facebook, they'd send Furlow-Smiles the money back so she could pocket it. They would either electronically send the money to her or her husband's bank accounts or send her cash wrapped in t-shirts.

It isn't clear if Furlow-Smiles was let go from Facebook because of this fraud, but during her tenure at Nike from November 2021 to February 2023, she got right back to work getting herself kickbacks through accomplices.

'She carelessly continued her fraudulent schemes at Nike, thinking she was untouchable. As a result, she not only threw away a lucrative career, but will serve time behind bars for her excessive greed,' FBI Special Agent Keri Farley said. 

Furlow-Smiles will spend five years and three months in prison, as well as three years of supervised release. 

She's also been ordered to pay back both Facebook and Nike.