Attorney Felicia Perkins confirmed during the April 17 hearing that the memo referenced in the court filings was the document being submitted. Federal criminal investigations are notoriously slow, but also notoriously thorough. The NAACP called on Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate years of allegations of widespread welfare fraud and misspending in Mississippi totaling over $94 million, according to a letter obtained exclusively by ABC News. 750 North State St. Jackson, MS 39202. JACKSON, Miss. At Whites swearing in as auditor after he appointed him, Bryant said: When I was auditor, I used to enjoy saying, In God we trust. Its unclear where any continuing federal or state investigations stand at this point. At least two Mississippi Medicaid recipients are making six figures and living in million-dollar homes, according to State Auditor Shad White, and he wants legislators to strengthen Medicaid investigators powers as a result. You can call him at 601-559-3857, send it to LSanderlin@gannett.com or message him on Twitter @LeeOSanderlin. We were unable to get a six-year contract and there were questions and audit agreed that they thought, that based on the fact that we had consecutive emergencies, that could put us in trouble, the mayor said. Scanlon told WLBT previously that the memo was drawn up to hurt the councils chances in that case. Especially if I wasnt going to take strong action on it, I would turn it over to somebody else.. ", Johnson urged "in the strongest possible terms to take immediate action to investigate and prosecute those involved in this massive theft of federal funds.". Today State Auditor Shad White announced Stephanie Churchill has pleaded guilty to embezzlement in Benton County Circuit Court. . We prefer Author Name, Mississippi Today in the byline. Our stories may appear on pages with ads, but not ads specifically sold against our stories. Lee O. Sanderlin is an investigative and political reporter covering the state of Mississippi. by Geoff Pender and Anna Wolfe, Mississippi Today May 12, 2022, This and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.. [ @5 Y02YUU (s %I ea ) }Pr"aTH6 xRN The job title. <>/ExtGState<>/XObject<>/ProcSet[/PDF/Text/ImageB/ImageC/ImageI] >>/MediaBox[ 0 0 612 792] /Contents 4 0 R/Group<>/Tabs/S/StructParents 0>> Job openings are posted for recruitment with Workplace Investment Network (WIN) Job Service Offices and on the Mississippi State Personnel Board (SPB) website at www.mspb.ms.gov. Fax: 601.576.2687 Mississippi's state auditor on Monday demanded a private prison operator pay nearly $2 million after the company improperly billed the state for thousands of prison guard shifts that were never actually worked. Today State Auditor Shad White announced that Special Agents from his office have served Management & Training Corporation (MTC) with a civil demand totaling nearly $2 million after the company failed to follow the terms of its contract to operate the Mississippi Department of Corrections (MDOC) facility in Marshall County. Richards filed its first complaint against the mayor and council last summer for failing to pay the company for trash collection services. Toll Free: 1.800.321.1275, Contact Find out what jobs are open by sending an email to Recruitment@osa.ms.gov or follow the instructions below. <> The auditors office refused to turn the messages over to Mississippi Today after a public records request, and the outlet has a pending Ethics Commission records complaint against the office. Youre not only jeopardizing your integrity but the integrity of the purpose youre pursuing Those facts raise the question of whether or not it passes the smell test, Johnson said. He also said that the letter of engagement with the firm in question included the $375 for when its senior partner participated. JACKSON, Miss. He previously served as an investigative reporter and political editor at the Sun Herald, where he was a member of the Pulitzer Prize-winning team for Hurricane Katrina coverage. Commenting on the indictments, State Auditor Stacey Pickering said, "It is a very sad day in Mississippi when two men with a history of public service are charged with blatantly committing crimes to increase their personal fortunes. State of Mississippi $V1\_wf^_W1obsY,(b>3*joxu9&x^?jxVf+,#?Yu_#po"iRxE4?Rh[V6tXHPI,:B59+Y T Steve Patterson was state auditor from 1992 to 1996, when he resigned after pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge of using a false affidavit to buy a car tag. Representatives for Favre did not immediately respond to ABC News' request for comment. As for the auditors investigation itself, there are some concerns the conversation was initiated with a phone call to the auditor as a way of legal strategy, said Banks. The panel was held at Germantown High School and comes after Auditor White issued an August 2022 report showing the societal and economic costs of fatherlessness in Mississippi. The fraud allegations were first revealed in 2020 by state prosecutors in one of the largest cases involving embezzlement claims in state history. The Auditors demand accounts for nearly 12,000 unfilled mandatory shifts at the Marshall County facility from 2017 to 2020. The MCEC did not reply to a request for comment from ABC News. The NAACP's Johnson said in his letter, "these apparent crimes were ignored by DOJ under your predecessor Attorney General, and we are calling on you to take action that is long overdue. On Thursday, the Mississippi Office of the State Auditor (OSA) announced last months return of $63,660.90 to public coffers. If MTC does not make payment on the demand within 30 days, the case will be transmitted to the Mississippi Attorney Generals Office for litigation. March 23, 2023 JACKSON, Miss. The fight has resulted in at least eight lawsuits, including one that was settled last week. All rights reserved.). Its mind-boggling that Mr. Favre wants to have a trial about that question. Agency Directory. Careers MDEQ is the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality. a proud member of the A few agreed to talk with them, quite a few just never responded.. announced a $55 million settlement with Centene, it opted to extend the contract for another year, Your California Privacy Rights / Privacy Policy. 11 0 obj endobj Whether Medicaid is expanded or not, we need to be doing more, White said. endobj 8d AccelerateMS. We believe that an informed Mississippi is a better Mississippi. New Mexico, Ohio, Georgia, Kansas and Arkansas are also investigating, according to the Wall Street Journal. The amount, roughly $45,000 for Mills, Scanlon, Dye & Pittman, also had been pulled from the April 11 claims docket. Auditors issued additional demands to vendors who received part of the $77 million in welfare spending but did not completely fulfill the terms of their contracts: Austin Smith: $378,791 Brett Dibiase: $225,950 Favre Enterprises, along with Brett Favre and Robert Culumber: $828,000 endobj She also worked as an investigative reporter for the Center for Public Integrity and Jackson Free Press, the capital citys alternative newsweekly. If Medicaid had the legal ability to do the analysis that we did here, there would be potential savings for the state and for Medicaid, he said. The council and Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars since 2021 on attorneys fees over the citys garbage collections. Independent pharmacies across the state are pushing back at what they call unfair practices when it comes to PBM reimbursement.. Bryants appointment of his former campaign manager and policy director White as state auditor in 2018 was something of a surprise to most political observers. He said the mayors independent attorney had filed a motion the same day the memo was released referencing a confidential document that was going to be filed Monday questioning whether the council had the legal authority to hire outside counsel. He also serves in the military as a captain in the Mississippi National Guard. Three former state auditors say they would have recused themselves or limited their involvement in the investigation into Mississippi's welfare fraud scandal to avoid perceptions of conflict of interest due to current auditor Shad White's close relationship with former Gov. of years of prison sentences for fraudsters. % What is the cost of Mississippi deciding not to expand Medicaid? However today, the Auditors office says PBMs are large corporations that have incredible power in the pharmaceutical industry. These exceptions involved miscellaneous, disallowed expenditures by chancery clerks and circuit clerks and are recorded as paid in full and settled to the appropriate fund directly.'. In 2009 he was sentenced to two years in federal prison for his role in a judicial bribery case. In fact, no one in the room had even thought about attorneys. Confirmation of the probe comes a week after Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch and State Auditor Shad White announced a $55 million settlement with Centene, another Fortune 500 company, to resolve allegations Centene had over-billed the state Division of Medicaid for prescription drugs. Mississippi Office of the State Auditor | 1,098 followers on LinkedIn. And when those facts are looming out there, youve got to back off and ask will my involvement jeopardize the integrity of the investigation I think (White) is a man of high integrity, but you asked me personally what I would do and thats it.. Documents obtained by WLBT earlier this month showed Auditor Shad White had launched an inquiry into the councils legal expenses related to its nearly two-year-long battle with the mayor over garbage pickup. Mississippi's auditor says $70 million in federal welfare funds went to Brett Favre, a sports complex and an ex-wrestler in a scandal that has rocked the poorest state. JACKSON, Miss. ", Johnson said the Mississippi state auditor's findings were referred to the Justice Department, "however, nearly two years later, despite the overwhelming documentary evidence of fraud, forgery, and abuse in this matter, DOJ has not yet launched a criminal investigation. Mississippi is one of several states probing the billing practices of its pharmacy benefit managers. Recouping taxpayer monies part of State Anne Summerhays is a recent graduate of Millsaps College where she majored in Political Science, with minors in Sociology and American Studies. He worked closely with federal authorities in the Operation Pretense investigation and prosecution of widespread county government corruption across Mississippi. a tough, no-nonsense reputation. State of Mississippi Keith. xY]o6}7pbf8i3kx`^xsn;)L}/zE'tAHdqvAv5\b:9:X4IqGN;Z7nTWz3\TFSt7"hUZ2m+(GqrI((9}*JA4p&HAittQ:YIX}0|("8viY0m|k@d(Fs >)% d( ,w@VD Cj x@ dPm RAB a Instead of paying New York litigators to try this case, hed be better off fully repaying the amount of welfare funds he owes the state., JACKSON, Miss. Continue Reading, JACKSON, Miss. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File - Copyright 2020 The Associated Press. Pender brings 30 years of political and government reporting experience to Mississippi Today. April 25, 2023 at 9:05 a.m. EDT. State Auditor Shad White issued the following statement after Theodore DiBiase Jr. was indicted today in federal court: Continue Reading, JACKSON, Miss. The state auditor "chose to disclose information that the division of Medicaid provided related to the divisions ongoing investigation of potential beneficiary fraud, which was caught by our internal controls, Matt Westerfield, a spokesperson for the agency, wrote in an email. Indictment, Brett DiBiase Pleads Guilty in Federal Court, Former City of Jackson Constituent Services Manager Pleads Guilty, Auditor White Hosts Panel Discussion on the Importance of Present Fathers. White has said that after his initial eight-month investigation and arrests, he has involved federal authorities and turned over everything his investigators have. You cant edit our stories, except to reflect relative changes in time, location and editorial style. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. PIE Application, Mississippi Office of the State Auditor 2020, Statute of Limitations on Bribery Increased, State Auditor Shad Whites Statement on Theodore Teddy DiBiase Jr. 6 0 obj Look for the "Republish This Story" button underneath each story. The council did not immediately approve a new contract with the company and residents were left without pickups for approximately two weeks. The monies are a result of instances such as bond repayments or a judges decision on restitutions. The new law increases the statute of limitations on bribery from three years to five years. Anna has received national recognition for her work, including the 2021 Goldsmith Prize for Investigative Reporting, the 2021 Collier Prize for State Government Accountability, the 2021 John Jay/Harry Frank Guggenheim Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting Award, the 2020 Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award and the February 2020 Sidney Award for reporting on Mississippis debtors prisons. They wont say. In the case of the welfare scandal, Auditor Shad White's office turned over information to the Hinds County District Attorney's Office that suggested Nancy New . He was political and investigative editor at the Clarion Ledger, where he also penned a popular political column. Since then, UnitedHealth has made almost a quarter-of-a-billion dollars from Medicaid services in the state.