Brett Favre: Mississippi Welfare Queen

[Winehole23]

1390323907094360064

[leemajors]

shitbird

[MultiTroll]

Awesome. Buy Anna Wolfe a beer.

Lets hope one of the Lamestream media follows up and gets camera in Favres face.

[Leetonidas]

Another Trumper is a grifter and hypocritically scamming the system out of tax dollars? shocker

[Winehole23]

MS politely asks Favre for the money back, but prosecutes others involved in the scheme.

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[Winehole23]

piggy bank for the MS GOP

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[DMC]

He has the Bud Dwyer look, maybe he has the courage.

[Winehole23]

state money steered to Brett Favre by Mississippi Republican Phil Bryant


Former Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant used the authority of his office, the weight of his political influence and the power of his connections to help his friend and retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre boost a fledgling pharmaceutical venture.

Then he tried to cash in on the project when he left office, text messages show.

Favre believed he could make millions as an early investor in a drug company. He just needed a little more political and financial capital to push the enterprise into the end zone.

“It’s 3rd and long and we need you to make it happen!!” Favre wrote to the governor in late December 2018, according to text messages recently obtained by Mississippi Today.

“I will open a hole,” Bryant responded, piggybacking on the football metaphor.
https://mississippitoday.org/2022/04/04/phil-bryant-brett-favre-welfare-scandal-payout/

[Winehole23]

dp

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^ :clap:bobo

If anyone wants to contribute to Mississippi Today, the non profit whom Anna Wolfe works for here is the link
Join | Mississippi Today (fundjournalism.org) (https://checkout.fundjournalism.org/memberform?org_id=mississippitoday&campaign=7010b000000ez8oAAA&_gl=1*bcia07*_ga*MTI2NDk4MDYyLjE2MzU3ODU3MjU)

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Anna Wolfe
Definitely want to buy her a beer.
https://i0.wp.com/mississippitoday.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/anna-crop.jpg?w=1200&ssl=1
“Regardless of what beat I’m covering, I’ve found every good investigative story stems from the experience of a certain level of unfairness. Exposing inequity through the stories of everyday people — not government officials, but factory workers, cashiers, caretakers — can and will inspire change. That’s our mission.”
— Anna Wolfe

[Winehole23]

Independent forensic auditors found that at least $77 million in federal welfare funds were misspent or stolen from Mississippi Department of Human Services during Bryant’s last four years in office. The agency filed a lawsuit in May (https://mississippitoday.org/2022/05/09/mississippi-welfare-scandal-civil-lawsuit/) seeking about $24 million from 38 individuals or organizations, but Bryant — who had the sole, statutory responsibility to oversee the spending of the state’s welfare agency — was not among the defendants.

The latest filing aims to demonstrate that Bryant had a close relationship with Davis and New and is just as responsible for the scheme. Without a bid or application process, Mississippi Department of Human Services, a department under the governor’s office, selected New’s nonprofit to receive tens of millions of welfare dollars, which they spent with little oversight.

“The most plausible reason for this massive transfer to New and her companies is the friendship between Bryant and New. There was no ‘full and open competition’ for this massive federal funding as required,” the filing reads.
https://mississippitoday.org/2022/06/28/mississippi-phil-bryant-sued-welfare-scandal/

[Winehole23]

New pleads guilty and cooperates, looks like TANF is a slush fund for washed up celebs and politically well connected folks in the US's poorest state.

Scandal has legs.


In an interview with the website Mississippi Today, Bryant said he never knew the grants came from welfare money. His lawyer didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The person in charge of the nonprofit group Pigott was referring to is Nancy New, a close friend of Bryant’s wife. New and her son have pleaded guilty to state and federal charges and agreed to cooperate. New, a key player in doling out the money, said in a court document that Bryant was among those involved in directing the transactions. Her lawyer declined to comment.

The former head of the state welfare agency, John Davis, has pleaded not guilty to state charges of bribery and conspiracy, and law enforcement officials say the investigations continue.

Favre defended himself in a series of tweets last year against allegations from White, the state auditor, that he accepted state money for speeches he never intended to give.

“I would never knowingly take funds meant to help our neighbors in need, but for Shad White to continue to push out this lie that the money was for no-show events is something I cannot stay silent about,” Favre tweeted.

The speeches aren’t the only welfare grants tied to Favre. Text messages obtained by Mississippi Today and authenticated by Pigott show that Favre sought a $3.2 million grant for a drug company in which he was a shareholder and a $5 million award that built a volleyball arena at the University of Southern Mississippi, where his daughter played the sport and where he played football. Favre’s lawyer declined to comment.https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/nations-poorest-state-used-welfare-money-pay-brett-favre-speeches-neve-rcna45871

[Winehole23]

Bryant lied.

Tate Reeves helped cover his tracks.


Text messages entered Monday into the state’s ongoing civil lawsuit over the welfare scandal reveal that former Gov. Phil Bryant pushed to make NFL legend Brett Favre’s volleyball idea a reality.
The texts show that the then-governor even guided Favre on how to write a funding proposal so that it could be accepted by the Mississippi Department of Human Services – even after Bryant ousted the former welfare agency director John Davis for suspected fraud.

“Just left Brett Favre,” Bryant texted (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22308549-exhibit-22) nonprofit founder Nancy New in July of 2019, within weeks of Davis’ departure. “Can we help him with his project. We should meet soon to see how I can make sure we keep your projects on course.”

When Favre asked Bryant how the new agency director might affect their plans to fund the volleyball stadium, Bryant assured him (https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22308548-exhibit-21), “I will handle that… long story but had to make a change. But I will call Nancy and see what it will take,” according to the filing and a text Favre forwarded to New.

The newly released texts, filed Monday by an attorney representing Nancy New’s nonprofit, show that Bryant, Favre, New, Davis and others worked together to channel at least $5 million of the state’s welfare funds to build a new volleyball stadium at University of Southern Mississippi, where Favre’s daughter played the sport. Favre received most of the credit for raising funds to construct the facility.



New, a friend of Bryant’s wife Deborah, ran a nonprofit that was in charge of spending tens of millions of flexible federal welfare dollars outside of public view. What followed was the biggest public fraud case in state history, according to the state auditor’s office. Nonprofit leaders had misspent at least $77 million in funds that were supposed to help the needy, forensic auditors found.


New pleaded guilty to 13 felony counts related to the scheme, and Davis awaits trial. But neither Bryant nor Favre have been charged with any crime.



Current Gov. Tate Reeves abruptly fired the attorney bringing the state’s case when he tried to subpoena documents related to the volleyball stadium.https://mississippitoday.org/2022/09/13/phil-bryant-brett-favre-welfare/

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https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FcjKVVZX0AIkYnS?format=jpg&name=medium

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Because of the strict prohibition on using TANF funds to pay for construction, the parties had to craft an agreement that would look to satisfy federal law and give the illusion they were helping needy families. With the help of legal advice from MDHS attorneys, they came up with the idea for New’s nonprofit to enter a $5 million up-front lease of the university’s athletic facilities, which the nonprofit would purportedly use for programming. And in exchange, the foundation would include offices for the nonprofit inside the volleyball facility, which they called a “Wellness Center.”

Davis immediately committed $4 million to the project, according to the motion.

“While Favre was pleased with MDHS’s $4 million commitment, he knew a state-of-the-art Volleyball Facility was likely to cost more,” the filing reads. “To make matters worse, USM apparently had a policy that any construction project on campus had to be funded fully, and the money deposited in USM’s account, before construction could begin.”

Favre thought of a way to get some extra cash to the program: even more money could flow through his company in exchange for the athlete cutting ads for the state’s welfare program. New said she thought it was a good idea.

“Was just thinking that here is the way to do it!!” Favre texted.

[Winehole23]

this was after New's nonprofit was being investigated for fraud


https://i0.wp.com/mississippitoday.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/welfare-9.13.22-text_bryant-nancy-12.18.19-23.jpg?resize=780%2C397&ssl=1

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lax litigation


Pigott previously called the $5 million agreement between the New nonprofit and the athletic foundation “a sham, fraudulent, so-called lease agreement” in which the parties pretended that the purpose of the deal was for the nonprofit to provide services at the facilities, “all of which was a lie,” Pigott said.


Pigott said he believed his firing was political. Reeves and his current welfare agency director have waffled on their reason for terminating Pigott (https://mississippitoday.org/2022/07/29/gov-reeves-justifies-omitting-volleyball-stadium-from-welfare-lawsuit-equivocates-on-legality-of-expenditure/).


The state’s civil case, which seeks to recoup $24 million from 38 people or organizations, appears to have slowed since Pigott’s firing (https://mississippitoday.org/2022/07/22/phil-bryant-welfare-scandal-lawsuit-brad-pigott/). The athletic foundation is not named as defendant and the volleyball stadium is not discussed once in the complaint. The state canceled and has not rescheduled several depositions that were supposed to take place this month — including one with Favre.
“People are going to go to jail over this, at least the state should be willing to find out the truth of what happened,” Pigott told Mississippi Today after his firing in July.

[Winehole23]

in a similar vein


The Justice Department said on Tuesday that a federal grand jury had indicted 44 people on charges that they ran a brazen fraud against anti-hunger programs during the coronavirus pandemic, stealing $240 million by billing the government for meals they did not serve to children who did not exist.


The case, in Minnesota, appears to be the largest fraud claim uncovered in any pandemic-relief program, standing out even in a period when heavy federal spending and lax oversight allowed a spree of scams (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/16/business/economy/covid-pandemic-fraud.html) with few recent parallels.

The Minnesota operation, prosecutors said, was especially bold: One accused conspirator told the government he had fed 5,000 children a day (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/08/us/politics/food-aid-nonprofits-fraud-investigation.html) in a second-story apartment.

Other defendants in the case seemed to put minimal effort into disguising what they were doing, using the website listofrandomnames.com to create a fake list of children they could charge for feeding. Others used a number-generating program to produce ages for the children they were supposedly feeding, which led the ages to fluctuate wildly each time the group updated its list of those nonexistent children, court papers said.


https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/20/us/politics/pandemic-aid-fraud-minnesota.html

[Winehole23]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FdHGLgeWIAIQd2D?format=png&name=360x360

[leemajors]

Gross.

[Winehole23]

not looking good for Favre


John Davis, the former director of Mississippi Department of Human Services, pleaded guilty Thursday for his role in the widening scandal related to more than $70 million in misappropriated welfare funds in the state with the highest level of poverty in the nation. As part a plea agreement, Davis has agreed to cooperate with investigators. Davis had previously been indicted for more than two dozen state and federal charges as part of the scheme. Nancy New, the head of a nonprofit used to funnel welfare funds, pleaded guilty (https://mississippitoday.org/2022/04/22/nancy-new-zach-new-plead-guilty-welfare-scandal/) to 13 felonies for her role in the fraud in April.

“If Favre gets indicted — and I expect he will be — one of the counts will surely be wire fraud,” said Matt Tympanick , a veteran federal criminal defense attorney and founder of Tympanick Law.“The text messages show that he was asking if you pay me money, would anybody be able to determine who paid me and how much?

“If those text messages can be authenticated by Davis, they can be used at trial. If not, they would be deemed inadmissible at trial.”
A source with knowledge of the investigation told FOS that Favre is on the radar of investigators and has been for months.




Favre and former Gov. Phil Bryant have not been charged for their alleged roles.

Davis faces up to 15 years in prison, according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Mississippi. He will be sentenced Feb. 2.
Favre’s attorney Bud Holmes has denied Favre knew he was accepting money from welfare funds.
https://frontofficesports.com/former-state-officials-plea-deal-could-mean-trouble-for-brett-favre/

[Winehole23]

somehow this doesn't seem to be getting as much attention on ESPN as Kap taking a knee or Michael Vick raising dogs to fight.

[spurraider21]

somehow this doesn't seem to be getting as much attention on ESPN as Kap taking a knee or Michael Vick raising dogs to fight.
probably has a lot to do with him having been retired for over a decade now

remember pretty late in his career with the vikings he had a dick pick scandal that was covered fairly heavily at the time

[Winehole23]

probably has a lot to do with him having been retired for over a decade now

remember pretty late in his career with the vikings he had a dick pick scandal that was covered fairly heavily at the timefair, he is a HOFer

[Winehole23]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fd1BpOBUoAQ2aOZ?format=jpg&name=medium

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https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Fd1BpOBUoAQ2aOZ?format=jpg&name=medium
FFS he is pathetic.

[Winehole23]

probably has a lot to do with him having been retired for over a decade now

remember pretty late in his career with the vikings he had a dick pick scandal that was covered fairly heavily at the timeI guess welfare fraud is not as sexy of a topic around here when it's rich white folks ripping us off.

[Winehole23]

wow, it just got weirder and sicker

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[MultiTroll]

wow, it just got weirder and sicker
Anna Wolfe is a smart babe.

I love her exposes and her librarian looks.

[Winehole23]

using TANF like a piggy bank


“Prevacus is a company that is going to treat concussions, but we also have a pre-game cream, PreVPro, which is available now,” Favre said in the interview. “You apply it on the neck. It’s a cream. A concussion is inflammation of the brain, which is bad. It adds some relief for six hours. It’s pretty neat.”







Prevacus, the company behind a novel inhalable concussion treatment, received about $2.2 million of federal welfare funds (https://frontofficesports.com/brett-favres-pocket-is-collapsing-in-mississippi-welfare-scandal/), which the pharmaceutical company should have been barred from under rules for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF).


But as the first handful of payments were made for the development of that drug, one source told FOS that Favre became more enamored with the development of the cream after he came across a similar product called AloeMD.


Thousands of dollars of the TANF funds were diverted from Prevacus’ original concussion treatment to develop the PreVPro cream.







However, it was never actually produced in mass quantities to be sold to the public, in spite of multiple animal experiments that led to the deaths of at least a half-dozen dogs.


Investigators in recent weeks have delved more into Favre’s role in getting those TANF funds, which were funneled from Mississippi Department of Human Services (DHS) through a non-profit and, finally, to Prevacus.


And, more specifically, sources told FOS that investigators are combing over records related to Favre and the PreVPro cream. Like Favre’s other links to the more than $8 million in misspent funds, one source said text messages are again likely to play a major role in the probe.







“He knew [the Mississippi welfare agency] money was going toward developing the cream,” one source told FOS.
https://frontofficesports.com/brett-favre-under-scrutiny-for-role-in-funding-concussion-cream/

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[Winehole23]

SA related:


Henry Muñoz, the San Antonio-born son of an ally to labor legend Cesar Chavez, has held many titles over the years: DNC vice-chair, DNC finance chair, co-creator of the progressive group Latino Victory, head of the board at the Smithsonian’s Museum of the American Latino, even owner of the Will Ferrell-founded production company Funny or Die.

ADVERTISEMENT
But among his most lucrative gigs yet has been as consultant to SOMOS Community Care. Since 2018, the nonprofit network of physicians’ offices for New York’s most marginalized residents has paid Muñoz more than $30 million.

The group’s financial disclosures show that it has shelled out over $14.3 million to Muñoz directly, and an additional $15.7 million to a limited liability company he owns. But the filings are available only through 2020, and the Democratic operative has maintained his relationship with the group in the years since, meaning he’s likely received even more money.



During the period for which records are available, SOMOS’s revenues declined markedly: from $182.8 million in 2018 to $104.7 million in 2019 to $33.5 million in 2020, tracking with the tapering-off of the state Medicaid program that the group was founded to capitalize on.


Larywon maintained that only $17 million of the $30 million SOMOS doled out to Muñoz over the first three years came from that initiative, indicating that the remainder derived from payments SOMOS received for providing services to patients. The organization refused to answer whether these fees also came out of Medicaid or another government program, and whether Muñoz or MSTZO received any part of the $25.5 million state contract to run COVID testing sites SOMOS landed in March 2020.

Meanwhile, for Muñoz, the influx of SOMOS cash coincided not just with a series of splashy property acquisitions but a marked increase in his political giving.

In just the period of Jan. 2018 until Jan. 2023 (https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/?contributor_name=Munoz%2C+Henry&min_date=01%2F01%2F2018&max_date=12%2F31%2F2022&contributor_state=TX)—that is, his time working for SOMOS—the total value of his federal contributions exceeded $1.15 million, nearly $400,000 more than he’d donated in the previous 30 years, including during most of his tenure as DNC finance chair. His husband, meanwhile—who alternately lists himself as an employee of Muñoz’s architecture firm and of MSTZO, LLC—contributed nearly $700,000 to federal candidates in the same period, half a million dollars more than he’d previously given his whole life.

Similarly, prior to 2018, Muñoz had made just five political gifts in New York, totaling $38,450, mostly donations to then-Gov. Cuomo. Today, the total value of all campaign contributions he has made in the state stands at almost 10 times that amount: $353,750.

Tallaj, SOMOS’s chairman and Muñoz’s old political pal, also dramatically escalated his political giving during the same period—in which two companies registered in his name received a combined $10.5 million from the nonprofit.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-the-dncs-former-chief-fundraiser-henry-munoz-turned-a-medicaid-program-into-his-personal-money-hose-somos

[Winehole23]

rJo3wwRCdhU


Former Tupelo nonprofit operator Christi Webb became the seventh defendant in Mississippi’s $77 million welfare scandal after she pleaded guilty to one federal charge of theft concerning federal funds before Magistrate Judge Keith Ball in Jackson on March 16.

Court documents say she directed nearly $1.1 million to companies owned by former WWE wrestler Teddy DiBiase Jr., who has not been charged with a crime. He is the son of WWE’s “Million Dollar Man,” Ted DiBiase Sr.

Until stepping down last week, Webb was the executive director of the Family Resource Center of North Mississippi, a nonprofit that handled millions in federal funds in coordination with the Mississippi Department of Human Services. The federal dollars included Temporary Assistance For Needy Families funds, which are meant to help poor families with children, and The Emergency Food Assistance Program funds, which provides nutrition assistance to families in need.

Former Mississippi Department of Human Services Director John Davis, who led the Mississippi Department of Human Services from 2016 to 2019, pleaded guilty on federal charges (https://www.mississippifreepress.org/27551/ex-mississippi-welfare-leader-indicted-on-federal-conspiracy-fraud-charges) in the case in September 2022; as head of the department, he oversaw the dispensing of federal funds to nonprofits like Webb’s. Davis’ indictment at the time implicated Webb as a “co-conspirator,” though not directly by name. Casey Lott, Webb’s lawyer at the time, told the Daily Journal (https://www.djournal.com/news/state-news/john-davis-former-mississippi-agency-leader-pleads-guilty-to-conspiracy-charges/article_fd2fa493-f948-5fd3-9a83-0ffe32a20e7e.html) that month that “it was ‘absurd’ for DOJ to believe she conspired (with) John Davis.”

But in the March 16 bill of information (https://www.mississippifreepress.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/2023-03-16-Christi-Webb-Bill-of-information.pdf), prosecutors say that “Davis, and at times others, directed WEBB … to award sham contracts purportedly for the delivery of social services to various individuals and entities,” including to two companies owned by retired WWE wrestler Teddy DiBiase, Jr.

The document accuses Webb of “misapplying” $700,000 in TANF funds and $497,987 in TEFAP funds to the companies. A 2021 independent forensic audit (https://www.mdhs.ms.gov/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/MDHS-Report-of-Fraud-Waste-Abuse-FINAL.pdf) paid for by the Mississippi Department of Human Services estimated that FRC misspent $11,539,615 in TANF funds alone between 2016 and 2019. Until resigning last week, Webb had served as the nonprofit’s director since 2005.
https://www.mississippifreepress.org/32034/charged-nonprofit-leader-directed-welfare-funds-to-wrestler-teddy-dibiase-jr

[Winehole23]

Teddy DiBiase Jr.’s brother, retired WWE wrestler Brett DiBiase, pleaded guilty on charges related to the TANF scandal in December 2020 (https://www.wlbt.com/2020/12/17/dibiase-pleads-guilty-part-m-embezzlement-scheme/). State officials say Ted DiBiase Sr. also received millions in TANF funds for his Christian ministry from MSDH under Davis’ tenure, though officials have neither accused nor charged him with a crime.

[Winehole23]

MS Supreme Court slaps down Favre's appeal for dismissal.


In their filing to the state Supreme Court, Favre’s attorneys argued that Department of Human Services officials and Nancy New, who directed a nonprofit organization with Human Services contracts, “concocted and carried out the scheme” to direct welfare money toward a volleyball center, and that Favre was not part of the effort.

Attorneys for the state responded that Favre took $1.1 million in TANF money (https://www.nbcnews.com/news/sports/brett-favre-repaying-1-1-m-no-show-speeches-auditor-n1201676) from Nancy New “for speeches he never made.”

“Favre repaid that, but he has neither repaid the $1.7 million he arranged for his drug company, Prevacus, to receive in exchange for giving Nancy New stock, nor the $5 million he orchestrated the USM Athletic Department to receive for a volleyball facility,” the state attorneys wrote.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/brett-favre-cant-removed-lawsuit-misspent-welfare-money-mississippi-su-rcna99272

[MultiTroll]

Farve "but but but i gave back 1.1 million out of 7.8 i scammed.
I should be off scott free durrr durrr."

Entitled asshole.

[MultiTroll]

:cry Favres liarwyers claiming his rep has been damaged. :cry

:lmao
Judge told them to jam it.

Brett Favre will not be removed from civil lawsuit stemming from Mississippi welfare funds misuse scandal - CBSSports.com (https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/brett-favre-will-not-be-removed-from-civil-lawsuit-stemming-from-mississippi-welfare-funds-misuse-scandal/)

[Winehole23]

When Anna Wolfe won the Pulitzer Prize (https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/anna-wolfe-mississippi-today-ridgeland-miss) for her dogged reporting on Mississippi’s welfare fraud scandal, she had no inkling she was soon going to have to contend with the possibility of going to jail.


But just over a year after she secured journalism’s top award for exposing how $77 million in federal welfare funds went to athletes, cronies and pet projects, she and her editor, Adam Ganucheau, are contemplating what to pack for an extended stay behind bars. Sued for defamation by the state’s former governor — a top subject of their reporting — they have been hit with a court order requiring them to turn over internal files including the names of confidential sources. They say the order is a threat to journalism that they will resist.



“If one of us goes to jail, we will be the first person to go to jail in the Mississippi welfare scandal,” Wolfe told NBC News, referring to the eight indictments that stemmed from the imbroglio, none of which has yet resulted in a sentence. “How can I make promises to sources that I’m going to keep them confidential if this is possible?”

https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/anna-wolfe-pulitzer-mississippi-welfare-scandal-phil-bryant-rcna159936

[MultiTroll]

https://www.nbcnews.com/investigations/anna-wolfe-pulitzer-mississippi-welfare-scandal-phil-bryant-rcna159936
Maybe Trump will pardon them.

Or better yet, Trump will see to it that the real criminals are prosecuted.

[Thread]

Maybe Trump will pardon them.

Or better yet, Trump will see to it that the real criminals are prosecuted.

...Or, you'll finally make good killing Trump