Fort Bend tax assessor Carmen Turner, two others charged in federal payroll fraud indictment
Prosecutors allege Turner put her mother’s caregivers and the father of her son on the county payroll. One co-defendant was working full time at a Chicago airport, the indictment says.
By Jessica Stroh · Thursday, October 22
This is a developing story and will be updated.
Fort Bend County Tax Assessor-Collector Carmen Patrice Turner has been charged in a nine-count federal indictment. It accuses her of putting people on the county payroll who did no real work for the Tax Office, and of instructing them to lie about it. Two of them cared for her elderly mother. The third, prosecutors say, held a full-time job at Chicago O’Hare International Airport.
Turner was arrested Thursday morning at her home in Missouri City, U.S. Attorney Aaron F. Reitz said. She and co-defendant Shemerrylyn Regina Fields were scheduled to make their initial appearances before a federal magistrate judge at 2 p.m. Thursday.
The indictment was unsealed Thursday, Oct. 22, at a press conference at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Texas in Houston. It also charges Victor Calvin Ewing, a former Tax Office employee. Reitz described Ewing at the press conference as Turner’s “baby daddy.” The indictment identifies him as the father of Turner’s adult son.
Officials said Turner, Fields and Ewing each face several decades in prison if convicted.
“We are ready to prosecute and go to trial,” Reitz said.
Officials said the losses to the county could reach tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars, but that the full amount will come out in court.
The FBI’s Houston Division investigated the case with the Texas Rangers. Jason Hudson of FBI Houston also spoke at the press conference. Officials said many public corruption cases begin with tips from the public.
The charges
All three defendants are charged with conspiracy. Prosecutors allege the scheme ran from about September 2023 through September 2025. The other counts are:
- Two counts of theft from a local government that receives federal funds. Turner and Ewing are charged for 2023, and all three are charged for 2024.
- Three counts of wire fraud against Turner and Fields, tied to county payroll deposits into Fields’ bank account in April, May and June 2024.
- Three counts of wire fraud against Turner and Ewing, tied to payroll deposits into Ewing’s account between December 2023 and February 2024.
The government is also seeking forfeiture and a money judgment against each defendant. Read the full indictment.
Caregivers on the clock
Fields was one of the women who cared for Turner’s mother, officials said. The indictment says Turner hired Fields in March 2024 and an unnamed person, identified only as “Co-Conspirator #1,” in October 2023. Both were hired as full-time deputy tax clerks reporting directly to her. Prosecutors allege that both actually spent their workdays caring for Turner’s mother, then 81 and using a wheelchair, at an apartment in Houston.
Prosecutors say Turner told both caregivers to clock in by phone at about 7:45 a.m. and out at about 5 p.m. on weekdays. She also told Co-Conspirator #1 and Ewing to say they worked “on the 2nd Floor at the Missouri City tax office location” if anyone asked, the indictment says.
The indictment cites photos the caregivers texted to Turner of her mother at the apartment. Those included a photo Fields sent on May 29, 2024, a day her timesheet showed her working a full shift. When Turner’s mother was hospitalized for about a month in December 2023, prosecutors say, Turner told Co-Conspirator #1 to stay with her mother at the hospital while continuing to report hours to the county.
Fields was still employed by the Tax Office as of Oct. 20, according to the indictment. She denied caring for Turner’s mother when investigators interviewed her in 2025, according to a sworn affidavit filed in Fort Bend County that year.
Co-Conspirator #1 was fired from the Tax Office in about September 2024. That person is not charged in the indictment and is cooperating with authorities, officials said.
A coordinator in Chicago
Turner signed off on hiring Ewing in October 2023 as a “Department Coordinator” paid $36 an hour. The indictment says that in truth he was working full time as a materials specialist for an airline at O’Hare.
Prosecutors allege Ewing’s job application falsely claimed he worked for the airline only on weekends, in New York. They also allege he and Turner agreed he would send her part of his county paychecks. The indictment cites an $800 Cash App transfer from Ewing to Turner in February 2024. In another example, Ewing withdrew $840 in cash on Dec. 4, 2023, three days after a county paycheck, and Turner deposited $600 into her business account the same day.
On Jan. 12, 2024, airport security badge records place Ewing at O’Hare from 8:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., according to the indictment. That same day, his county-issued phone called in to the county’s time-clock line four times from Chicago, prosecutors say. Also that day, Turner logged into a state vehicle-registration system using Ewing’s credentials and processed 41 transactions, according to the indictment. In one of them she entered a vehicle price of $295,836.92 instead of $29,583.92, which caused a dealership to be charged a far larger sales-tax amount. The indictment says Turner later told a Texas Department of Motor Vehicles investigator that she had logged in as Ewing to help with the office’s workload, because she did not have her own access to the system.
Ewing resigned from the Tax Office in March 2024.
From county probe to federal court
As the Fort Bend Falcon previously reported, the case began after a fired Tax Office employee complained to the county auditor, who referred it to the Fort Bend County District Attorney’s Public Integrity Division in January 2025. The Public Integrity Division investigated and obtained search warrants. Because District Attorney Brian Middleton had represented Turner in private practice, his office was required to recuse itself, and the Harris County District Attorney’s Office took over the case. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Carolyn Ferko and Rodolfo Ramirez are prosecuting the federal case.
Turner, a Democrat, took office in January 2021 and was reelected in November 2024 to a term that runs through 2028. In 2016, a federal grand jury in Houston indicted her on bankruptcy fraud charges, alleging she repeatedly filed for bankruptcy to stop foreclosure on her home.
An indictment is a formal accusation. All defendants are presumed innocent unless proven guilty in court.
How to report public corruption
Anyone with information about public corruption can contact FBI Houston 24/7 at (713) 693-5000 or submit a tip online at tips.fbi.gov. FBI Houston also takes corruption tips by email at HoustonCorruption@fbi.gov, and anonymous tips at 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324).
