FOCUS: 2022 Elections • Housing & Evictions • #MSWelfare Scandal • Jackson Water • Abortion • Race & Racism • Policing • Incarceration
Brett Favre sought Gov. Tate Reeves’ help to get state funds to pay for volleyball facilities that the former NFL star had vowed to personally fund at his alma mater, according to text messages the Mississippi Free Press obtained through a public-records request to the governor’s office.
Then-Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour channeled $570 million in Hurricane Katrina housing recovery funds away from rebuilding housing for poor Gulf Coast residents and toward improving the state port at Gulfport. That’s vital context for $77-mllion TANF scandal, Ellen Ann Fentress writes.
A week after hiring an ex-Trump White House attorney, retired NFL star Brett Favre is telling Fox News that he did not know that $1.1 million he received from a Mississippi nonprofit and millions he helped his alma mater obtain to build a volleyball stadium were federal welfare funds.
Attorneys for Austin Smith, a defendant in a civil lawsuit over Mississippi’s massive welfare scandal case, have issued a subpoena to former Gov. Phil Bryant for a broad range of documents and communications related to the alleged misspending of $77 million in federal welfare funds.
In the wake of recent disclosures of texts related to Mississippi’s welfare scandal, retired NFL star Brett Favre has hired Eric D. Herschmann, an Austin, Texas-based attorney who served as a lawyer for former President Donald Trump. Herschmann will represent Favre amid the ongoing investigations and civil suit over what State Auditor and Hinds County District Jody Owens called the largest welfare-fraud scandal in Mississippi history when they announced their investigation in February 2020.
Between 2016 and 2019, the Mississippi Department of Human Services and nonprofits associated with it allegedly misspent more than tens of millions of dollars in federal Temporary Assistance For Needy Families funds that should have gone to the poorest families in the poorest state. More than $5 million of those funds went toward a volleyball-stadium project at the University of Southern Mississippi favored by retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre and $1.1 million went to Favre himself.
John Davis, the former Mississippi Department of Human Services director who presided as a massive welfare fraud scandal unfolded, is facing multiple federal conspiracy, fraud and embezzlement charges relating to the misuse of funds meant for poor families with children.
“Multiple prosecutors” are still examining the facts and making decisions about criminal charges in Mississippi’s sprawling welfare scandal that saw millions in funds meant for poor families go instead to wealthy celebrities, Mississippi State Auditor Shad White said on Thursday, Sept. 15.
The FBI has interviewed retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre regarding the Mississippi welfare scandal that saw over $77 million in Temporary Assistance For Needy Families Funds doled out to fund pet projects and sports celebrities—including Favre himself, NBC reports.
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The Mississippi Free Press is a project of the Mississippi Journalism and Education Group, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit journalism organization (EIN 85-1403937).