A 34-year-old Moberly man was sentenced Tuesday to 27 months in federal prison and ordered to repay $284,840 after federal prosecutors say he spent three years posing as a landlord to siphon money from Missouri's pandemic-era rental assistance program. Steven W. Hendren pleaded guilty in June to one count of wire fraud, closing out a case that stretched from a 2024 grand jury indictment to a sentencing that lands squarely in the middle of a broader federal crackdown on COVID-19 relief fraud.
According to court filings relayed by the U.S. Attorney's Office and reported by FOX 2, Hendren carried out the fraud between March 2021 and June 2024, submitting falsified lease agreements, altered financial statements, and inflated rent totals to the Missouri Housing Development Commission while falsely claiming to be a landlord. The commission was responsible for reviewing applications and disbursing federal pandemic emergency housing funds, and per the Department of Justice, Hendren followed his initial submissions with additional applications containing further altered and fraudulent information.
The scheme drew on Missouri's State Assistance for Housing Relief program, known as SAFHR, which was created after the pandemic to cover rent, utility bills and other expenses for struggling tenants and landlords. As KCUR reported, the program was backed by more than $320 million in Emergency Rental Assistance funds allocated to Missouri specifically to keep tenants housed during the COVID-19 crisis by paying past-due rent and utilities directly to landlords or eligible tenants.
From Indictment to Guilty Plea
Hendren was originally indicted by a federal grand jury in St. Louis in December 2024 on four felony counts, including three counts of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft. He ultimately reached a plea agreement to plead guilty to a single wire fraud count in June, a common outcome in federal fraud cases where prosecutors drop secondary counts in exchange for a guilty plea on the primary charge.
The case was investigated by the FBI and prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Derek Wiseman in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. Authorities say Hendren used the stolen funds for personal purchases, including a 2020 GMC Yukon. A single count of wire fraud carries a maximum statutory penalty of up to 20 years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000, though Hendren's 27-month sentence reflects federal sentencing guidelines tied to the overall dollar loss and other factors weighed by the court.
Part of a Broader Federal Crackdown
Hendren's sentencing arrives amid an intensified national push to prosecute pandemic-era benefit fraud. The Department of Justice established a dedicated National Fraud Enforcement Division in April to speed up investigations and prosecutions of fraud targeting public relief programs, connecting Hendren's case to enforcement priorities playing out across the country.
The Eastern District of Missouri has kept an active docket of similar cases. In August, federal prosecutors in the district secured a 20-count conviction against a visiting minister in Paris, Missouri, who stole more than $1.2 million in pandemic loans and $600,000 in auto and personal loans using his congregation members' identities. Both that case and Hendren's involved fraudulent documentation schemes investigated by federal law enforcement in rural Missouri communities outside the state's major metro areas.
In April, six St. Louis-area residents were indicted in federal court over an alleged $8.38 million relief fraud ring accused of submitting at least 40 fraudulent Paycheck Protection Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loan applications between March 2020 and December 2024. Together, the cases show federal authorities in eastern Missouri pursuing both large organized fraud networks and individual opportunists who exploited emergency financial programs.
The Scale of Missouri's Pandemic Aid
The vulnerabilities exploited in cases like Hendren's trace back to the sheer volume of money that moved through state agencies during the pandemic. According to the Missouri State Auditor's Office, the state obligated nearly 99% of its $2.7 billion federal COVID-19 relief allotment, including tens of millions disbursed through the Missouri Housing Development Commission. The rapid disbursement requirements attached to that emergency funding created structural openings that fraudulent applicants across the state were able to exploit.
