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On Tuesday, former footing-the-ballman Brett Favre (pronounced like it’s not spelled) issued a very pissy statement condemning the media for being mean to him in its reporting about his involvement in a plot by Mississippi politicians and corrupt nonprofit officials to steal federal anti-poverty funds and use them for stuff that had nothing at all to do with fighting poverty. Do keep in mind when you hear the shorthand “Mississippi welfare theft scandal,” that the thieving was done by people who took money that should have gone to help struggling families. All told, some $77 million in federal welfare funds were misappropriated during the final term of former governor Phil Bryant, who has not been charged in the scandal. At least three people have pleaded guilty so far to felony fraud charges.
And now there’s another new development for Brett Favre to feel aggrieved about. CBS News reports that, as part of a campaign to fund a pharma company Favre had invested in, the former NFL star
hosted Mississippi officials at his home in January 2019, where an executive for a pharmaceutical company Favre invested in solicited nearly $2 million in state welfare funds, according to pitch materials obtained by CBS News.
A document distributed at the January 2, 2019 meeting describes plans to secure money from the state’s Department of Human Services, which operates Mississippi’s welfare program. The pitch was led by Jacob VanLandingham, then the CEO of pharmaceutical company Prevacus, which was attempting to develop a concussion drug.
Favre was the top outside investor in Prevacus, and has insisted that he had no idea that any public welfare funds were going into the for-profit venture.
Favre also solicited roughly $5 million from the Mississippi Department of Human Services (MDHS) to build a volleyball stadium at his alma mater, the University of Southern Mississippi, where where his daughter was a volleyball player. Favre also insists he was unaware that deal involved federal welfare money either, explaining that he was simply using his celebrity to do good things for his home state, and that he assumed the people arranging the money, like Bryant and the nonprofits that distributed the funds, were acting legally.
The funds were diverted from the federal Temporary Assistance to Needy Families (TANF) program, which in the olden days was called “welfare,” and even now is putatively meant to provide cash assistance to poor families, or at least to programs that states can claim with a straight face will somehow benefit needy families, even very tangentially.
The Prevacus scheme was framed as a noble effort to boost economic development in Mississippi, while also making Prevacus and Favre a bundle of profits. Text messages between Favre and others make clear that he was aware the funding he sought was from government grants. As with the funding for the volleyball stadium, the funds were administered through MDHS and then through a nonprofit organization, the Mississippi Community Education Center, which was at the center of many of the diversions of TANF funds. The founder of that group, Nancy New, was a close friend of Phil Bryant’s wife Deborah; New and her son Zach have both pleaded guilty to several criminal counts in the scandal and are now cooperating with investigators.
CBS News notes that the January 2019 meeting Favre hosted for VanLandingham and state officials
was not his first interaction with state officials about the company. One month earlier, text messages first reported by Mississippi Today appear to show the former NFL quarterback personally lobbied then-governor Phil Bryant. The news site reported that VanLandingham offered Bryant stock in the company, and Bryant agreed to accept it after leaving office.
They even did football talk! Favre wrote to Bryant, “It’s 3rd and long and we need you to make it happen!!” And then Bryant, getting into the whole jock talk vibe, replied, “I will open a hole,” and we assume that at some point the wide receiver took the money and ran.
The question here is whether Favre knew, or should have known, that the money he was helping to raise originally came from welfare dollars. His recently hired attorney, Eric Herschmann (the former Trump lawyer famous for telling coup plotter John Eastman to get a “good fucking criminal defense attorney”) told CBS News that
state officials, including Bryant, never told Favre that the money Bryant would provide would be derived from welfare funds. Herschmann pointed out that Bryant had previously served as Mississippi state auditor, leading the department that oversees public funds.
“He knew who all the parties were involved. If there was an issue about these funds not being used, or unable to be used, he should have been the first one that stood up and said something,” said Herschmann. “He never said anything to Brett Favre, nor did anyone else ever tell him that this was restricted welfare funds.”
As we’ve noted, plenty of people around the investigation are skeptical about that, and believe Favre should have figured out there might be something funny about using funds coming from the state’s “Department of Human Services,” which administers anti-poverty funding. It’s a thought! On t’other hand, there are (so far) no texts or emails that directly show Favre having knowledge that the funds originated with TANF.
CBS News explains that shortly after that January 2, 2019, meeting at Favre’s house, VanLandingham signed a contract with Zach New of the Mississippi Community Education Center
for $1.7 million promising Mississippi that, in return for the money, it would have the “first right of refusal for clinical trial sites” in a future study phase described as “1B.” […]
Months later, VanLandhingman asked a state welfare official for the money in a text message exchange, a screenshot of which was obtained by CBS News.
“We would love 784k,” VanLandingham wrote to an employee associated with the nonprofit.
“Jake, you cannot even imagine the word stress for us right now! At any rate, we can send 400k today. I will need to let Brett (Favre) know that we will need to pull this from what we were hoping to help him with on other activities. 😩,” the employee replied, before also asking for “status reports.”
VanLandingham replied, “Thx sister. Can we stay in line to get the other 380k ? I Ly (sic) you guys.
That all sounds very legal and very cool!
Brad Pigott, a former federal prosecutor who has investigated these transactions for Mississippi, told CBS that the contract was “an egregious betrayal, both of the poor and of the law.”
He added that Favre
“was the largest single outside investor” in Prevacus when it received the state grant.
“Both Federal and Mississippi law required 100% of that money to go only to the alleviation of poverty within Mississippi and the prevention of teenage pregnancies,” said Pigott, who said Prevacus ultimately received $2.1 million.
Ultimately, Prevacus never did its initial phase of testing of its nasal-spray treatment for concussions in Mississippi; the company was bought out in 2021 by
Nevada-based Odyssey Group International, where VanLandingham is now an executive vice president. In September, the company completed its Phase 1 clinical trial. The study was done in Australia, according to National Institutes of Health records and a September 2021 press release. The company said in a separate press release five days ago that it is moving onto Phase 2 trials.
Attorneys for VanLandingham also say that neither he nor Prevacus were ever “aware that the money received was sourced by TANF funds or that it was earmarked to help welfare recipients.”
On the up side, maybe some of the Phase 2 trials will take place in Mississippi, so there’s that.
As Mississippi Today reports, an attorney in one of the several civil lawsuits over the scandal are now seeking the release of even more records from the people involved, including communications among Bryant, Favre, and others, so we’re sure there will be even more drama to come. It’s a hell of a soap opera, except that most soaps don’t revolve around a massive scheme involving movers and shakers stealing money meant to go to poor people. Maybe needy families will learn not to become grifty state officials and all will be well.
[CBS News / Mississippi Today / Mississippi Today]
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