A former St. Louis city building inspector was indicted Wednesday on three counts of wire fraud for allegedly funneling city construction contracts to companies set up at his direction by his sister and his romantic partner (later his wife). He is now in federal custody.
Adebanjo “Banjo” Popoola resigned from his position in December 2024 amid mounting questions about contracts awarded to his companies through federally funded programs meant to stabilize vacant and rundown properties.
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As part of overseeing those programs, Popoola was tasked with identifying properties for rehab, bidding out the work for each property, and selecting the winning contractor, the indictment against him says. It was also his job to certify with the city Comptroller’s Office that the work had in fact been done and the funds should be disbursed.
Using his position, Popoola is accused of having awarded $1,743,825 in contracts to Farst Construction, which had been set up by Popoola’s sister. In some cases, Popoola himself received the checks from the city and then endorsed and deposited them into the Farst bank account. In another instance, Popoola’s sister deposited a $15,000 city check into a personal bank account and then cut her brother a check for $10,000. The sister was living in Texas at the time and had no background in construction.
Meanwhile, Popoola was living with a woman identified in court documents as T.G., whom he married in Hawaii in 2023. T.G., allegedly at his direction, set up a company called Premier Finish Contractors. SLM‘s reporting has connected Premier to a woman named Tanya Garrett.
Premier won $2,362,300 in city contracts from the programs overseen by Popoola. Those funds flowed into a joint bank account controlled by T.G. and Popoola, the indictment says.
In 2022 and 2023, Popoola filled out the annual City of St. Louis Secondary Employment Questionnaire, declaring that he had “no personal interest, directly or indirectly, in a contract with the City of St. Louis including any agency, division or department of the City of St. Louis, and he also falsely represented that he had no interest in any business,” according to the indictment.
The indictment against Popoola cites three counts of wire fraud, two of which involve the purchase of airline tickets from St. Louis to Honolulu for his 2023 wedding. The third count of wire fraud stems from a $5,380.26 payment to Mungenast Lexus to repair a Lexus RX 350 registered to Popoola. In all three cases, the indictment claims, those funds came directly from checks cut by the city.
Popoola allegedly personally benefited to the tune of $1.67 million after paying subcontractors for supposedly working on the city stabilization projects.
The indictment follows reporting by SLM late last year that raised questions about Popoola, a longtime city building inspection supervisor who oversaw programs funded with federal American Rescue Plan Act dollars aimed at stabilizing derelict buildings across the city. City records showed that two of the largest recipients of those funds were companies tied to Popoola or his family.
In state records, Farst Construction listed its principal office at an apartment in Maryland Heights belonging to Popoola’s ex-wife, Joy Popoola. She told SLM she had nothing to do with the company and only knew of it because mail addressed to Farst regularly arrived at her home.
The second company, Premier Finish Contractors, was organized and run by Garrett, who purchased a home with Popoola in Wildwood in 2023.
In addition to Farst and Premier, a third company, Maxify Contractors, also received roughly $277,000 through the same city programs. State filings show that Maxify shared a registered agent with Premier Finish at one point, though the precise relationship between that company and Popoola remains murky. Maxify is not mentioned in today’s indictment.
As SLM reported, the work by Popoola’s companies drew complaints. Farst Construction, for example, billed the city for work on a North City garage later purchased by Tony Pitale. The city insisted that Farst had done good work on the property, including adding a new roof, but a quick visual inspection suggested cause for concern. The contractor claimed to have fixed a staircase when the building had no staircase. Its bid also mentioned repairing a dormer window and clearing out debris (it had no dormer, and Pitale says he found plenty of debris on site).
When the city initially defended the program and the contractors it hired, it had no idea those contractors were tied to its own inspector. SLM first exposed those ties on December 11, 2024. Two days later, Popoola resigned from his city position. City officials also paused the stabilization programs and said they were reviewing past contracts and revising how contractors are selected.
The following week, then-Mayor Tishaura Jones requested that both the FBI and the State Auditor investigate the Building Division.
Around the same time that city was familiarizing itself with the name Banjo Popoola, KSDK’s Mark Maxwell broke the story of a different building inspector named Dan Coplin who inspected daycare facilities. Coplin had become the subject of complaints made by daycare owners that he was pressuring them to donate money to a charity golf tournament. The wife of Coplin’s boss, former Building Division head Frank Oswald, worked as a contract fundraiser for the tournament. Coplin told SLM that Oswald had pushed him to solicit the “donations.”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” Coplin said at the time, though he acknowledged it looked bad. “I just tried to do the right thing.” He said he never meant to pressure anyone to donate and alleged he had been “asked to ask the daycares if they would donate.”
Asked who was pressuring him, Coplin said it was Oswald. He said that he’d bring checks back to Oswald, who would “put it in his suit coat pocket.” Asked how long this went on, Coplin said “years.” Oswald vehemently denied the allegations and said he was concerned for Coplin’s mental health.
