[ The state auditor says $70 million in federal welfare funds went
to Favre, a volleyball complex and a former pro wrestler in a scandal
that has rocked Mississippi.]
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MISSISSIPPI USED WELFARE MONEY TO PAY BRETT FAVRE  
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Ken Dilanian and Laura Strickler
September 1, 2022
NBC News
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_ The state auditor says $70 million in federal welfare funds went to
Favre, a volleyball complex and a former pro wrestler in a scandal
that has rocked Mississippi. _

Brett Favre, Getty Images

 

Brett Favre earned nearly $140 million as a star NFL quarterback over
two decades and millions more in product endorsements.

But that didn’t stop the state of Mississippi
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from paying Favre $1.1 million in 2017 and 2018 to make motivational
speeches — out of federal welfare funds intended for needy families.
The Mississippi state auditor said Favre
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never gave the speeches and demanded the money back, with interest.

Favre has repaid the fees, although not the $228,000 in interest the
auditor also demanded. But the revelation by the auditor that $70
million in TANF
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welfare funds was doled out to a multimillionaire athlete, a
professional wrestler, a horse farm and a volleyball complex are at
the heart of a scandal that has rocked the nation’s poorest state
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sparking parallel state and federal criminal investigations that have
led to charges and guilty pleas involving some of the key players.

Favre hasn’t been accused of a crime or charged, and he declined an
interview. His lawyer, Bud Holmes, said he did nothing wrong and never
understood he was paid with money intended to help poor
children. Holmes acknowledged that the FBI had questioned Favre in
the case, a fact that hasn’t previously been reported.

The saga, which has been boiling at low grade for 2½ years, drew new
attention in July, when the state welfare agency fired a lawyer who
had been hired to claw back some of the money, just after he issued a
subpoena seeking more information about the roles of Favre and the
former governor, Phil Bryant, a Republican. The current governor,
Republican Tate Reeves, acknowledged playing a role in the decision to
sack Brad Pigott, accusing the Bill Clinton-appointed former U.S.
attorney of having a political agenda. But the state official who
first uncovered the misspending and fraud, auditor Shad White, is a
Republican.

Republican.

Brad Pigott was hired to claw back some of the TANF money. He was
fired just after he issued a subpoena seeking more information about
the roles of Brett Favre and former Gov. Phil Bryant.NBC News

In his first television interview since he was fired, Pigott said his
only agenda was to get at the truth and to recoup U.S. taxpayer funds
sent to Mississippi that he says were “squandered.”

“The notion of tens of millions of dollars that was intended by the
country to go to the alleviation of poverty — and to see it going
toward very different purposes — was appalling to many of us,” he
said. “Mr. Favre was a very great quarterback, but having been a
great NFL quarterback, he is not well acquainted with poverty.” 

Pigott, who before he was fired sued on behalf of Mississippi’s
welfare agency, naming Favre and 37 other grant recipients, laid
ultimate blame at the feet of top Mississippi politicians, including
Bryant.

“Governor Bryant gave tens of millions of dollars of this TANF
welfare money to a nonprofit led by a person who he knew well and who
had more connections with his political party than with the good
people in Mississippi who have the heart and the skills to actually
cajole people out of poverty or prevent teenage pregnancies,” he
said.

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

Millions of dollars of federal welfare funds intended for needy
families are alleged to have been used to build a women's volleyball
facility at the University of Southern Mississippi.NBC News

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
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state and federal charges and agreed to cooperate. New, a key player
in doling out the money, said in a court document
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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
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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 state auditor rejected Favre’s defense in a series of tweets
that pointed to the contract he obtained and said, “You can continue
to use your megaphone as a celebrity to drown out the facts, but it
will not change the facts.”

The speeches aren’t the only welfare grants tied to Favre. Text
messages
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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.

The drug company, Prevacus
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was touting treatments to mitigate the effects of concussions,
although none were approved by the Food and Drug Administration. In
some texts, Favre suggested awarding shares in the drug company to
Bryant while he was governor.

“Don’t know if legal or not but we need cut him in,” Favre
texted a company official in November 2018, referring to Bryant.
Following up three days later, Favre wrote, “Also if legal I’ll
give some of my shares to the Governor.”

Bryant has said he never would have accepted such an offer.

“All of it remains quite a mystery,” Pigott told NBC News, “as
to why Mr. Favre would get the benefit of millions of dollars in TANF
welfare money, both for a fee for speeches he didn’t make, $2
million-plus to go to a company in which he was the largest outside
individual investor and $5 million for his alma mater to play
volleyball in a volleyball building.”

The state auditor said he found other “no show” contracts
benefiting former pro athletes and family members of Davis, the
welfare agency director.

The auditor said Davis directed one contract to Austin Smith, his
nephew, who was paid more than $400,000 to provide “coding skills”
classes even though prosecutors allege he had no such skills “and
did not know how to teach.”

At least $3 million went to Ted DiBiase, a retired professional
wrestler. Marcus Dupree, a former college football star, also
received $370,000 in welfare funds, which prosecutors say partly went
to fund his horse ranch.

Paul LaCoste
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who is the current governor’s athletic trainer, was paid $300,000 in
welfare funds to run a fitness boot camp for legislators.

DiBiase, Dupree, and LaCoste didn’t immediately respond to requests
for comment. Smith denies all wrongdoing, according to a court filing
provided by his attorney.

The scandal has also spotlighted the meager scope of Mississippi’s
welfare program and provided a stark reminder of the Clinton-era
welfare reform that provided states with block grants and wide
latitude in how they spend them. According to state figures,
Mississippi rejects more than 90% of those who apply for the federal
welfare benefit known as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or
TANF. This year 2,500 children received benefits, state officials
said, in a state with 192,000
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children.

One of those who had trouble getting help was Tamara Edwards, who
raised four children on her own while working a series of low-wage
jobs.

She once received welfare vouchers for child care, and in 2009 she
applied again, she said. Even though her income was low enough, she
was denied. 

“They told me they didn’t have the funds,” said Edwards, who now
works as a cook at a Cracker Barrel restaurant.

Advocates and state legislators say Mississippi’s welfare agency,
under years of conservative Republican state governments, has a
history of questionable spending and a lack of transparency.

“TANF has been a slush fund for a long time,” said Oleta
Fitzgerald, who is the director of the Children’s Defense Fund’s
Southern Regional Office and is based in Jackson, the state capital.
“Mississippi is the poorest doggone state in the country — where
is the money, and what are they doing with it? There is nobody on
welfare — welfare participation rates are way down — and no one
knows where that money is being spent.”

Aisha Nyandoro, the chief executive of Springboard to Opportunities, a
local nonprofit group that works with residents of affordable housing,
said: “And DHS [the state Department of Human Services] will tell
you that the reason that they cannot go about allocating the TANF
funds is because they can’t find any families who are eligible. Go
outside and throw a rock. It’s Mississippi. You can find an eligible
family.”

Jarvis Dortsch, a former state legislator who heads the state’s
chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said that when he was a
member of the Legislature, “I could not get a list of how the money
was being spent.”

Dortsch said he had to resort to secrecy. 

“Someone had snuck me a list — it didn’t have [a] DHS [logo] on
it — they had it printed out and snuck it out,” he said.

White, the auditor, told NBC News the investigation goes on. “My
office is continuing the work we started over two years ago on what is
now the largest public fraud case in our state’s history,” he
said. “We will also continue to work with our state and federal
partners to be sure each person responsible for this massive scheme is
held fully accountable under the law.”

Ken Dilanian is the Justice and Intelligence Correspondent for NBC
News, based in Washington.

Laura Strickler is a Washington-based investigative reporter with the
NBC News Investigative Unit.

Didi Martinez contributed.

* Red States
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