A Hinds County Circuit Court judge has ruled that retired NFL player Brett Favre must turn over his text messages to the State of Mississippi but not his tax returns as the Mississippi Department of Human Services works to uncover millions in misspent Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds.
“Defendant’s personal tax returns do not appear to be relevant to the claims or defenses. Specifically, the Complaint does not allege that the Defendant Favre personally received TANF funds,” a court order Judge E. Faye Peterson issued on Dec. 15 says.
“Defendant, however, shall produce all written communications stated in production request number 27,” the order continues, saying Favre only has to turn over the texts if he has access to them.
The Mississippi Department of Human Services is targeting Favre and dozens of other people in a civil lawsuit. Last year, former MDHS Director John Davis pleaded guilty to state and federal charges for helping distribute $77 million in TANF funds to causes that were unrelated to the program.
State attorneys allege that millions of TANF dollars went to Favre, other sports celebrities and projects they pushed. Investigators say Favre got $1.1 million in TANF funds to give motivational speeches and to film promotional videos. Investigators also allege that Favre asked Davis and the directors of nonprofit organizations to send millions in TANF funds for two projects: constructing a volleyball stadium at his alma mater, the University of Southern Mississippi, where his daughter was playing volleyball at the time, and for Prevacus, a concussion medication company in which the former quarterback invested.
But Favre has rejected claims that he knew the money came from welfare funds. The state targets him in the civil lawsuit, but federal and state prosecutors have not indicted the former quarterback for any involvement in the welfare scandal.
In June 2022, MDHS’s attorneys asked for Favre to give documents related to the case, but the State said Favre did not complete all its requests in an Oct. 9 filing. The State asked him to “describe in detail all documents and/or recordings and/or data concerning the subject matter of this action that have been destroyed, lost, discarded, or otherwise disposed of,” but Favre’s attorneys disagreed and said the request was “overly broad, unduly burdensome, and irrelevant.”
“In his Interrogatory response, Favre states he has no information responsive to the disposal of documents, recordings and/or data,” the State’s motion to compel says. “But, in response to MDHS’s requests for admissions, Favre claims he cannot verify the authenticity of text messages because he no longer has a record of the text messages. Both responses cannot be true. Either Favre has all his text messages, or he does not. If he does not have certain text messages, Favre has information responsive to Interrogatory No. 9. If he does have all his text messages, he should verify the authenticity of his text messages.”
State attorneys held Favre in a nine-hour deposition on Dec. 11 in Hattiesburg, Miss., but the public will likely not learn anything about the interrogation in the immediate future. A Hinds County Circuit Court judge filed an order that kept some of the discovery materials from the public, including transcripts from the deposition.
