Favre repays $600K in Mississippi welfare case, auditor says

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Retired NFL player Brett Favre has repaid $600,000 in state welfare money he accepted for speeches where he didn’t appear, but the state attorney general could sue Favre if he doesn’t pay interest owed on the amount, the Mississippi auditor said Wednesday.

Auditor Shad White said Favre paid the $600,000 to the auditor’s office this week. White sent the former Green Bay Packers quarterback a letter Oct. 12 demanding $828,000, which was the $600,000 plus $228,000 in interest.

Of the $228,000, White said: “If he does not pay that within 30 days of our demand, the AG will be responsible for enforcing the payment of the interest in court.”

Favre is not facing criminal charges, but former Mississippi Department of Human Services director John Davis and other people have been charged in one of the state’s largest embezzlement cases. Allegations of misspending came to light in early 2020 when Davis and five others were indicted.



FILE - In this Oct. 17, 2018, file photo, former NFL quarterback Brett Favre speaks with reporters in Jackson, Miss. Favre has repaid $600,000 in state welfare money he accepted for speeches where he didn't appear, but the state attorney general could sue Favre if he doesn’t pay interest owed on the amount, the Mississippi auditor said Wednesday, Oct. 27, 2021. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/nfl-sports-business-mississippi-green-bay-packers-86cf30aaadb4387ff73e578bbeaa517d

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I'm a Packer fan. I have a hard time understanding what he was thinking.

[choie]

1. "welfare money"?

n/a

[walkingman]

2. Not good enough - pay the interest.

[brush]

13. Another 225k of interest seems quite high...33 percent.

Where can I find that kind of interest?

[walkingman]

14. You can't but can you find 1.1 million dollars of Federal

money intended for the poorest people in the state for doing absolutely nothing? Nope. And for him to day he didn't know sounds like a like lie to me.

Maybe he has that MAGA disease and can't tell if he is lying??

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

3. WTF?

[rpannier]

4. I saw an article about him at least 5 years ago

I guess he has been suffering the ill-effects of all those hits.
He said he was sitting in a chair waiting to go to his daughter's soccer game.
Then he turned to his wife and said he thought they should go
She told him they had already been at the game
He did not remember getting up, driving to the game and returning. Which is really scary if you think about it

[Sherman A1]

5. He should be charged and jailed for theft

[BumRushDaShow]

6. It took until the final paragraph of the AP article to figure out what the heck was going on

I think this part summarizes it pretty well -

Mississippi Community Education Center, operating as Families First for Mississippi, received more than $44 million in government grants from mid-2014 to mid-2018, according to nonprofit tax filings. Amounts spiked to $12.9 million and $26.7 million in the final two years, as Davis outsourced a large portion of Mississippi’s Temporary Assistance to Needy Families spending to the group.

Apparently state employees working for MS's Dept. of Human Services were funneling federal funds designated for TANF ("Temporary Assistance for Needy Families" - the old name for "welfare" ) to specific private community services organizations that were allegedly set up to actually help distressed families in need of assistance, but those orgs instead considered that money to be their personal piggy bank and redirected it for other purposes.

This is the inherent danger of so much of what we try to do to address the chronic under-funding of certain communities who are in desperate need "right now", which then means that little or no vetting of organizations actually happens, and voila! Criminal misappropriations result, which is sad.

[Mysterian]

8. Just because it's "non-profit" doesn't mean it's not a scam

A lot of so-called "non-profits" have overpaid staff bilking money from government grants.

[BumRushDaShow]

9. Exactly.

In fact many of the biggest entities participating a different program, who were sucking in government money, and then misusing it, were some so-called "charter schools".

[NCjack]

7. Who's "bright" idea was to pay him out of State funds to make speeches?

[BumRushDaShow]

10. It was apparently some supposed "no-profit" community organization

who had been given funds (probably under some sort of contract or agreement with the state) to provide "community services" and they took that money and did other things with it instead.

[NCjack]

11. If Favre took that money and did nothing, it really stinks for

many reasons.

All the folks that I know who do community service do not charge. And, if he took that money and did nothing, I hope an IG is looking for kickbacks.

[BumRushDaShow]

12. That's what they have to find out

if he was a "willing participant" or just assumed it was the organization's own money.

For example the organization might have manufactured something like hosting some sort of "fundraising event" like a local carnival, where "proceeds go towards the organization" and they diverted TANF money that perhaps should have been used for staffing counseling services or maybe a 24 hour help line, and instead used it to "pay a celebrity" for "an appearance" to draw in more people and "donations", etc. for the "event" (and then he didn't show).

[twodogsbarking]

15. He's nucking futs.

[Skittles]

16. how much money is ever enough for these fucking assholes

?

[LenaBaby61]

17. THIS 👆🏻👆🏻👆🏻

[Mysterian]

18. Favre and Jerry Rice selling "copper-infused" corsets on TV

I wonder how much he made from that.