The East Baton Rouge Parish agency that doled out hundreds of millions of dollars in federal housing money during the COVID pandemic allowed too much to be spent on development fees, spent money before contracts were in place and made duplicate payments for the same invoices, among other problems, an internal audit found.

Federal law enforcement is investigating the office's activity under former Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome, multiple sources said.

In one case the audit highlights, a project to build three small homes ballooned from $220,000 to almost $500,000 — and the developer collected more than quadruple the amount of personal fees he was originally allowed.

The developer, Jason Hughes of Hughes Consultant Group LLC, says his contract more than doubled in size because of ri

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