A magistrate judge denied bond today for 34-year-old Raissa Kengne, an ex-IT audit manager at public accounting firm BDO USA in Atlanta who is accused of murdering her former BDO supervisor and the property manager of the condominium building where she resided during an attack yesterday afternoon in the city’s Midtown area.
She also is accused of shooting and injuring a second employee of the property management company and threatening to shoot a third employee.
Kengne was charged with two counts of murder, four counts of aggravated assault, possession of a firearm, and false imprisonment after being arrested and taken into custody yesterday in the international terminal of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport around 4 p.m.
During her first court appearance this afternoon, Magistrate Judge Todd Ashley denied Kengne bond, according to the Atlanta Journal- Constitution.
Police accused Kengne of using a handgun to fatally shoot 60-year-old Michael Shinners and wound a second victim Monday at the first shooting scene—the 1280 West condominium building on West Peachtree Street. Both men were employed by Beacon Management Services, the company that manages the condominium building. Police said yesterday during a news conference that Kengne lived in those condos, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Shinners was the property manager; the man who was wounded, later identified as Mike Horne, the company’s chief building engineer, was taken to the hospital yesterday afternoon. His condition is not known at this time. Both men were found by authorities at around 1:45 p.m. in the management office.
A third victim was held at gunpoint in the management office as Kengne demanded personal property from the employee, according to the arrest warrant which was seen by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
About 30 minutes later, Kengne allegedly shot and injured 41-year-old Wesley Freeman at an office tower at 1100 Peachtree St., which is the address for BDO’s office in Atlanta. He was transported to Grady Memorial Hospital where he later died.
According to Kengne’s LinkedIn profile, she had worked for BDO in Atlanta from August 2019 until November 2021 as an IT audit manager. Freeman, who reportedly was her supervisor, was an IS assurance managing director, according to his LinkedIn profile which has since been deleted.
In a message to employees this morning from BDO USA CEO Wayne Berson and Chief People Officer Cathy Moy, which someone posted on the professional business and career community platform Fishbowl, Berson and Moy called Freeman “an incredible team member who brought exceptional passion, dedication, and integrity to his work over the past 17 years at BDO. He will be deeply missed.” They also told employees to “please keep Wes’ family, our colleagues in Atlanta and all those impacted by this senseless act of violence in your hearts and minds.”
The message said the BDO office in Atlanta will be closed until further notice, and the firm is working closely with law enforcement as they continue to investigate.
Authorities apprehended Kengne late yesterday afternoon at the airport—before she went through security and entered a restricted area—without incident and recovered the weapon she allegedly used in the triple shooting, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.
Atlanta Police Chief Darin Schierbaum said after her arrest that the shootings were “not random” and the victims were specifically targeted.
Kengne, who according to her LinkedIn profile is currently president and CEO of Kengne Corp., published a series of posts within the past week or so lashing out at BDO, Freeman, Beacon Management Services, and the Atlanta Police Department. In one post, she claimed BDO retaliated against her for reporting violations of auditing standards pertaining to IT audit engagements. Kengne wrote that she was “constructively discharged by the firm.” The post also says:
There were significant deficiencies and material weaknesses across all the engagements I was assigned to and was managing, which at the time were 50 % of the public clients and 85% of the private clients in the Southeast region.
My home was broken into. My life and my family lives were threatened – not only by BDO USA, LLP and its Partners and members of its senior management team, but also by their clients. Clients actually threatened me … . Furthermore, BDO USA’ employees and partners leverage their relationship with people living in my condominium in order to pursue the retaliation at my home.
Wesley Freeman, CPA, CISA, CFE, CITP is the laziest manager I have had the displeasure of working for. His laziness is only surpassed by his incompetence. How hard is it really to test elevated privileges for systems when you have professional organizations and the SEC already setting the standards for you….?
You bet I am suing all of them! It is a shame that the sixth biggest public accounting firm has criminals at the top. No one is above the law.
She also wrote: “If you are planning to move to a condominium, I would advise that you stay away from one managed by Beacon Management Services; they are not only incompetent, but criminal as well.”
Kengne did file a nearly 600-page federal whistleblower lawsuit earlier this summer that named several defendants, including Beacon Management Services, Shinners, BDO USA, and Freeman.
The filing says Kengne faced “retaliation, persecution, harassment, intimidation, threats, burglary, computer hacking, phone spoofing, and other attacks” after “reporting to the relevant authorities a violation of the SEC regulations, PCAOB standards, the Antitrust law, and a circumvention of the law prohibiting employers from asking about an applicant’s pay history in the state of Georgia. The unlawful, criminal, immoral, and illegal acts presented in this instrument were perpetrated by the defendants.”
The case was moved to federal court in July, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Judge Catherine Salinas eventually ordered to strike Kengne’s original complaint from the docket, denied her motion to remand her case to state court, and denied her motion for a stay in all motions.
Last week, Kengne, who was representing herself, filed an appeal to Salinas’ order with the 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, the newspaper reported.
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Tags: Accounting, PCAOB
