Lydia Avoki wears an ankle monitor to cosmetology school.
“When I was 17 years old when I got arrested for a first degree murder charge,” she said recently in the living room of her small house off Statesville Avenue. “Just because I was in the car. I was falsely accused of it.”
That was January 2020, when her brother, William Avoki, shot and killed a 19-year-old man inside his car in Druid Hills. William Avoki pleaded guilty to second degree murder in May.
Lydia Avoki said she was charged because she rode in a car with her brother to the site of the shooting.
“I was in solitary confinement the whole time,” she said. “When COVID came, it became a '23/30' — I only had 30 minutes out of my cell. Just for being somewhere I didn’t ask to be.”
While she was in Mecklenburg County Jail, Avoki met Tiawana Brown by Zoom.
Brown — who would be elected to Charlotte City Council three years later — leads a nonprofit, Beauty After the Bars, to help incarcerated women. She founded it in 2017, almost two decades after serving 33 months in federal prison in the 1990s for Social Security fraud.
Avoki credits Brown with motivating her to turn her life around.
“Tia, she was one of those cut to the bull**** people, like myself,” she said. “(She told me) ‘You can call me on the jail call and I will pick that s**t up in the middle of the night.”
Avoki was released from jail in 2022 on bond. The charges are still pending.
Now, Avoki often does Brown’s makeup before City Council meetings.
“I love Tiawana Brown with all my heart,” she said. “She’s the reason I go out into the community and I am a mentor to others.”
She starts like to cry: “It’s because of Tiawana and her heart — didn’t give up on me.”
'Forever in prison'
Mecklenburg Sheriff Garry McFadden has worked closely with Brown to help female inmates. She calls him her mentor.
“I went to her and said, ‘Could you help me with (working with female inmates)?’ And she said yes. And I mean, they love her. They love her. Because she was authentic. And she was honest," said McFadden. "And when people say be accountable — she was accountable for what she did. She didn’t hide it.”
Due to her work with Beauty After the Bars, Brown’s status was rising in Charlotte.
After losing a bid for City Council in 2022 by 474 votes, she ran again in 2023 after incumbent Victoria Watlington ran for a citywide seat. This time, Brown won easily.
She was working as a customer service agent for American Airlines, but was plagued by money problems.
In 2010, she still owed $53,000 in restitution stemming from her federal case. In 2017, the North Carolina Department of Revenue sued her for back taxes, and won a $27,000 judgement against her.
In a 2022 video about her life story, Brown said being in debt took a toll.
“Since my release, I am forever in a prison of my financial responsibility program,” she said. “My paychecks are garnished. Out of every job, out of every paycheck. The total I owe now, exceeds $300,000. It makes sure you are forever in debt.”
Then came an opportunity during the pandemic, federal prosecutors say.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said she and her two daughters created fake Schedule C tax forms, and they often used the same form to apply for 15 business-relief loans available during the pandemic.
One form was for a business called TC Collection, which has a social media page but not website. Prosecutors allege the form said the business had nearly $107,000 in revenue from selling women’s swimwear, against only $10,350 of expenses.
Brown said during a news conference that it was an innocent mistake.
“The application was submitted by a third party,” she said. “So what I accept responsibility for is maybe not scrutinizing the application.”
Though the investigation was started by the previous U.S. attorney for Western North Carolina, Dena King, who is Black, Brown suggested it was racially motivated. She pointed out some white-owned businesses were allowed to pay back their PPP loans without being prosecuted. She mentioned the owners of Hillbilly’s Barbecue in Gaston County were allowed to pay back their loans.
“Once you’re in the system and you are given a number — 10567058 — we’re never free,” she said. “There’s a system that keeps us inside of a system.”
She continued.
“I have a very strong and courageous voice that I use everyday to fight for everybody in District 3. I love everybody. I meet people right where they at. Unfortunately on this day, I can say justice doesn’t love people who look like.”
The indictment says Brown’s TC Collection loan was deposited into the Beauty After the Bars bank account and that $15,000 from that account was spent on a birthday party for herself.
Brown was asked about that in her May press conference by Joe Bruno of WSOC.
“The feds say you spent $3,500 on a venue for your birthday party — $5,000 in catering, $2,300 for photography, a rented throne and a horse-drawn carriage. What was that party?” he asked.
Brown’s attorney said they wouldn’t talk about that until trial. Her next court appearance is set for Sept. 2.
For Lydia Avoki, the indictment has not changed what she thinks about Brown. In fact, she thinks Brown's story is even more powerful now.
“From my perspective, Tiawana is a celebrity,” Avoki said. “The feds shine a light on her. Why? Because now people want to know her story more. Because when people hear her story more, they can relate to it. It’s just going to open up more of the people’s lives so she can change, because I'm not (her) only mentee.”
