Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
This is Later with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast
More what You Hear Weekday Afternoon's.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
On the Drive.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Shad White is the state Auditor abdu Declaia of the
great State of Mississippi. During his tenure, he and his
office uncovered more waste, fraud, and abuse than any other
time in the state's history. And he's a prolific writer
on fraud and his works appeared in The Wall Street Journal,
USA Today, and many many more. He's got a new
book out called Mississippi Swindle, Brett Barre and the Welfare
(00:35):
Scandal that Shocked America. Shad White's I apologize for my
Mississippi accent, but I have relatives from Hadisberg who talked like.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
That, will accept your apology. You got a question enough,
We'll forgo.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
This whole thing. Sounds like something that would easily happen
here in Oklahoma.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yeah, Unfortunately, Well, you guys actually had a case that
was pretty similar uncovered by your state auditor that involved
an education company. But down here in Mississippi, what we
saw in the case that I wrote about was again, unfortunately,
the largest public fraud scheme in the history of the state,
and it involved millions and millions of dollars of welfare money,
money that was sent over to a nonprofit and then misspent.
(01:23):
All told, more than one hundred million dollars of welfare
funds down here got misspent, and out of that millions
of dollars got taken as a result of fraud. Multiple
individuals have pleaded guilty to state and federal charges. And
what I wrote in Mississippi s Windle really just describes
what the team here at the Auditor's office did to
uncover and put a stop to that scheme.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
So let's get into the meat and potatoes of this
and how Brett Farb was involved.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
So when we were doing our investigation and audit we
of this misspent welfare money, we found three buckets of
funds that related to farv. The first was about one
point one million dollars that went too far of enterprises.
It went too far of enterprises based on a contract
that we found that required mister Farr to give certain
(02:10):
speeches which he did not give. We have no idea
if he knew he was supposed to give those speeches.
But for our purposes, all that matters is that that
was the document that justified all this money going to
far of enterprises and it wasn't complied with, So that
was bucket number one. Bucket number two was about two
million dollars that went to a company called Prevocus. Prevocus
is an experimental concussion treatment company in which mister Farv
(02:33):
is a large investor. The head of Prevocust now has
pleaded guilty to federal charges, So that that was bucket
number two. And then bucket number three is about five
million dollars that went to pay for a very nice,
fancy volleyball court at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg.
That money went there at a time when mister Farre's
(02:55):
daughter was at USM playing volleyball and mister Farvar course
is in a lump of you them. So those are
the three buckets that related to him. The state, meaning
our state Department of Human Services, is now suing far
to try to get some of that money back. He's
voluntarily repaid some of the money back, but it is
not facing any criminal charges this time.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
But is anybody facing criminal charges about this? Because this
to me sounds like one of those cases where it
would be very easy. Oh, I didn't know, that's what
was happening.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Yeah, at this point, seven people have pleaded guilty to
state or federal charges. And that includes the head of
the state agency who was orchestrating a lot of this
money and the way it flowed out. And the head
of a big local nonprofit down here named Nancy new
who was one of the main co conspirators with that
head of the state agency. So multiple people have pleaded guilty,
(03:48):
and really at this point in the case, we're four
years in. Our office has really completed its investigation. The
FBI has investigated this for about the last four years,
a little over four years, and so really where we
are now is prosecutors are taking all of these facts
that have been dug up and they're making decisions about
who else, if anyone, they would like to charge with
(04:10):
the crime.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Shad White is with a state auditor of Mississippi and
his book is interesting to me Mississippi Swindle, Brett Favre
and the welfare scandal that shocked America, because it sounds
to me like this would easily happen in Oklahoma, Shad,
and this also would easily happen in any state.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah, Unfortunately, we have seen a pattern of programs designed
to help either children or the poor be stolen from
across the country. So another good example is in Minnesota,
federal prosecutors claim that over two hundred and fifty million
dollars of federal grant money was taken by a nonprofit
(04:51):
and the grant was supposed to feed needy kids and
it fortunately, it looks like a ton of money got
stolen from that program. This is very sadly a pattern
that you see repeat itself around the country. I think
the reason is that a lot of these programs that
are designed to help the poor have very bad oversight.
That the programs often end up giving a lot of
(05:14):
money to nonprofits, and they don't do a lot of
monitoring of the nonprofits once the dollars get over to them.
And also, of course, you know, the programs are designed
to benefit poor people, and so sometimes if a poor
person who's supposed to benefit from the program see something
that doesn't quite make sense, they don't know who to
report it to. So part of the purpose of me
writing the book was to raise awareness about these kinds
(05:37):
of schemes and around the country in the hopes that
this kind of stuff will stop.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Well, what you describe is exactly what happened with the
epic charter school issue here in Oklahoma. And that's not
to indict epic charter school. It's to indict the franchisees
who were clearly doing what you just described. And I
guess it's because a lot of times these programs are
designed for the poor, designed for the underprivilege. To attack
them or to suggest they need to be audited, well,
(06:02):
you're just paddling hate, you know.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
And I think the point that you made is important,
and the point that I was trying to make in
the book is this, even though this kind of stuff happens,
there are still people out there and offices out there
that are looking for this and are trying to put
a stop to it. So your state Auditor's office is
an example. State Auditor's office down here as an example,
we have one hundred and thirty five men and women here,
(06:26):
their investigators, their attorneys, their career CPAs, their support staff,
and they're the ones who worked hard, who dug in,
who figured out what was going on in this case.
And at the end of the day, they put their
names on audit documents, and you know, every time they
do that, they put their professional credibility on the line.
But they were willing to do that and tell the
(06:48):
public some hard truths about what was going on down here,
because that's the job.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Well, our auditor, Cindy Bird is to the point where
whenever I find or read a story that she's looking
into something, I say to myself, we'll find it. That's
how fine too.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
I know Cindy. I know Cindy well, and we see
each other at State auditors conferences, which which are about
as exciting as you can imagine they would be, but
sending out good buddies. And she's a great state auditor.
And you guys are lucky to have her.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Mississippi Swindle, Brett fav and the welfare scandal that shocked America,
and keep bringing it back to Oklahoma because it could
easily happen. I mean, every time we turn around, we're hearing,
whether it's a municipality or the state, Uh, oh, we've
got to build a bigger stadium. Oh we need a
more modern stadium. Oh what how are we going to
do that? And uh, Mysteriously, it's usually ends up in
(07:40):
a in some sort of sales tax hike or in
the case of a university, a tuition hike. Uh, and
it's a never ending it's a never ending road of construction,
it seems.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Yeah, and this is unfortunate. We've we've done a lot
of looking beyond this case in my office at waste
in government, and we find this over and over again
a lot of times. The easy solution for a government
bureaucrat or for a politician is to say, well, we
need money for X, Y or Z, so let's raise
taxes and try to get some of that money in
the door. The more difficult, but better solution is to say,
(08:15):
how are we wasting money? And so, yeah, it's tragic
down here in Mississippi that we found that one hundred
million dollars welfare funds got lit on fire and did
nothing to benefit anyone. But part of the gratifying part
of this job being state auditor is that if we
can put a stop to some of that kind of stuff,
it frees up money to do the things that actually
benefit taxpayers and benefit the people who who are putting
(08:39):
their money into the system, who are paying money to
the government and expect something in return.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
And was this at a time when Mississippi had just
been hit so hard by a Hurricane Katrina or was
this afterwards.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Or this was many years after So we were hit
by Katrina back in two thousand and five, and this
was back between twenty sixteen and twenty nineteen or so.
But but again, look, I mean, we still have one
out of every five Mississippians in poverty here. We have
a huge need. And when you see a program that's
designed to benefit those folks that gets taken advantage of,
(09:11):
it's tragedy.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Well, I was going to say it didn't certainly didn't
help in the recovery that was probably still going on somewhat.
Mississippi swindle Brett Farb and the welfare scandal that shocked
America Shad White. What does it take to be a
good auditor?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
You know, I think first and foremost, you have to
be willing to work hard. You have to be willing
to either have or learn the skills that it takes
to do this job. So you need to know about
white collared criminal law. You need to know a little
bit about accounting obviously, you need to know how investigations work.
But more important than all of that, you have to
be willing to tell the truth even when it hurts.
(09:49):
You have to be willing to tell the truth about
how taxpayer money got spent. And you have to be
willing to do that because your responsibility, your boss are
the taxpayers. I'm not willing to do that. You've got
to go find a different job.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
He's Mississippi State Auditor Shad White. Mississippi Swindle is the
book Brett Farbe and the Welfare scandal that's shocked America.
It'll shock you and it's a musk read from the
words of the of the New York Times. Thank you
for joining us.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Thank you, brother, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee
Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live
weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation
This is Later with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast
More what You Hear Weekday Afternoon's.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
On the Drive.
Speaker 3 (00:12):
Shad White is the state Auditor abdu Declaia of the
great State of Mississippi. During his tenure, he and his
office uncovered more waste, fraud, and abuse than any other
time in the state's history. And he's a prolific writer
on fraud and his works appeared in The Wall Street Journal,
USA Today, and many many more. He's got a new
book out called Mississippi Swindle, Brett Barre and the Welfare
(00:35):
Scandal that Shocked America. Shad White's I apologize for my
Mississippi accent, but I have relatives from Hadisberg who talked like.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
That, will accept your apology. You got a question enough,
We'll forgo.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
This whole thing. Sounds like something that would easily happen
here in Oklahoma.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Yeah, Unfortunately, Well, you guys actually had a case that
was pretty similar uncovered by your state auditor that involved
an education company. But down here in Mississippi, what we
saw in the case that I wrote about was again, unfortunately,
the largest public fraud scheme in the history of the state,
and it involved millions and millions of dollars of welfare money,
money that was sent over to a nonprofit and then misspent.
(01:23):
All told, more than one hundred million dollars of welfare
funds down here got misspent, and out of that millions
of dollars got taken as a result of fraud. Multiple
individuals have pleaded guilty to state and federal charges. And
what I wrote in Mississippi s Windle really just describes
what the team here at the Auditor's office did to
uncover and put a stop to that scheme.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
So let's get into the meat and potatoes of this
and how Brett Farb was involved.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
So when we were doing our investigation and audit we
of this misspent welfare money, we found three buckets of
funds that related to farv. The first was about one
point one million dollars that went too far of enterprises.
It went too far of enterprises based on a contract
that we found that required mister Farr to give certain
(02:10):
speeches which he did not give. We have no idea
if he knew he was supposed to give those speeches.
But for our purposes, all that matters is that that
was the document that justified all this money going to
far of enterprises and it wasn't complied with, So that
was bucket number one. Bucket number two was about two
million dollars that went to a company called Prevocus. Prevocus
is an experimental concussion treatment company in which mister Farv
(02:33):
is a large investor. The head of Prevocust now has
pleaded guilty to federal charges, So that that was bucket
number two. And then bucket number three is about five
million dollars that went to pay for a very nice,
fancy volleyball court at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg.
That money went there at a time when mister Farre's
(02:55):
daughter was at USM playing volleyball and mister Farvar course
is in a lump of you them. So those are
the three buckets that related to him. The state, meaning
our state Department of Human Services, is now suing far
to try to get some of that money back. He's
voluntarily repaid some of the money back, but it is
not facing any criminal charges this time.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
But is anybody facing criminal charges about this? Because this
to me sounds like one of those cases where it
would be very easy. Oh, I didn't know, that's what
was happening.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Yeah, at this point, seven people have pleaded guilty to
state or federal charges. And that includes the head of
the state agency who was orchestrating a lot of this
money and the way it flowed out. And the head
of a big local nonprofit down here named Nancy new
who was one of the main co conspirators with that
head of the state agency. So multiple people have pleaded guilty,
(03:48):
and really at this point in the case, we're four
years in. Our office has really completed its investigation. The
FBI has investigated this for about the last four years,
a little over four years, and so really where we
are now is prosecutors are taking all of these facts
that have been dug up and they're making decisions about
who else, if anyone, they would like to charge with
(04:10):
the crime.
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Shad White is with a state auditor of Mississippi and
his book is interesting to me Mississippi Swindle, Brett Favre
and the welfare scandal that shocked America, because it sounds
to me like this would easily happen in Oklahoma, Shad,
and this also would easily happen in any state.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Yeah, Unfortunately, we have seen a pattern of programs designed
to help either children or the poor be stolen from
across the country. So another good example is in Minnesota,
federal prosecutors claim that over two hundred and fifty million
dollars of federal grant money was taken by a nonprofit
(04:51):
and the grant was supposed to feed needy kids and
it fortunately, it looks like a ton of money got
stolen from that program. This is very sadly a pattern
that you see repeat itself around the country. I think
the reason is that a lot of these programs that
are designed to help the poor have very bad oversight.
That the programs often end up giving a lot of
(05:14):
money to nonprofits, and they don't do a lot of
monitoring of the nonprofits once the dollars get over to them.
And also, of course, you know, the programs are designed
to benefit poor people, and so sometimes if a poor
person who's supposed to benefit from the program see something
that doesn't quite make sense, they don't know who to
report it to. So part of the purpose of me
writing the book was to raise awareness about these kinds
(05:37):
of schemes and around the country in the hopes that
this kind of stuff will stop.
Speaker 3 (05:41):
Well, what you describe is exactly what happened with the
epic charter school issue here in Oklahoma. And that's not
to indict epic charter school. It's to indict the franchisees
who were clearly doing what you just described. And I
guess it's because a lot of times these programs are
designed for the poor, designed for the underprivilege. To attack
them or to suggest they need to be audited, well,
(06:02):
you're just paddling hate, you know.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
And I think the point that you made is important,
and the point that I was trying to make in
the book is this, even though this kind of stuff happens,
there are still people out there and offices out there
that are looking for this and are trying to put
a stop to it. So your state Auditor's office is
an example. State Auditor's office down here as an example,
we have one hundred and thirty five men and women here,
(06:26):
their investigators, their attorneys, their career CPAs, their support staff,
and they're the ones who worked hard, who dug in,
who figured out what was going on in this case.
And at the end of the day, they put their
names on audit documents, and you know, every time they
do that, they put their professional credibility on the line.
But they were willing to do that and tell the
(06:48):
public some hard truths about what was going on down here,
because that's the job.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Well, our auditor, Cindy Bird is to the point where
whenever I find or read a story that she's looking
into something, I say to myself, we'll find it. That's
how fine too.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
I know Cindy. I know Cindy well, and we see
each other at State auditors conferences, which which are about
as exciting as you can imagine they would be, but
sending out good buddies. And she's a great state auditor.
And you guys are lucky to have her.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
Mississippi Swindle, Brett fav and the welfare scandal that shocked America,
and keep bringing it back to Oklahoma because it could
easily happen. I mean, every time we turn around, we're hearing,
whether it's a municipality or the state, Uh, oh, we've
got to build a bigger stadium. Oh we need a
more modern stadium. Oh what how are we going to
do that? And uh, Mysteriously, it's usually ends up in
(07:40):
a in some sort of sales tax hike or in
the case of a university, a tuition hike. Uh, and
it's a never ending it's a never ending road of construction,
it seems.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
Yeah, and this is unfortunate. We've we've done a lot
of looking beyond this case in my office at waste
in government, and we find this over and over again
a lot of times. The easy solution for a government
bureaucrat or for a politician is to say, well, we
need money for X, Y or Z, so let's raise
taxes and try to get some of that money in
the door. The more difficult, but better solution is to say,
(08:15):
how are we wasting money? And so, yeah, it's tragic
down here in Mississippi that we found that one hundred
million dollars welfare funds got lit on fire and did
nothing to benefit anyone. But part of the gratifying part
of this job being state auditor is that if we
can put a stop to some of that kind of stuff,
it frees up money to do the things that actually
benefit taxpayers and benefit the people who who are putting
(08:39):
their money into the system, who are paying money to
the government and expect something in return.
Speaker 3 (08:43):
And was this at a time when Mississippi had just
been hit so hard by a Hurricane Katrina or was
this afterwards.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Or this was many years after So we were hit
by Katrina back in two thousand and five, and this
was back between twenty sixteen and twenty nineteen or so.
But but again, look, I mean, we still have one
out of every five Mississippians in poverty here. We have
a huge need. And when you see a program that's
designed to benefit those folks that gets taken advantage of,
(09:11):
it's tragedy.
Speaker 3 (09:12):
Well, I was going to say it didn't certainly didn't
help in the recovery that was probably still going on somewhat.
Mississippi swindle Brett Farb and the welfare scandal that shocked
America Shad White. What does it take to be a
good auditor?
Speaker 2 (09:26):
You know, I think first and foremost, you have to
be willing to work hard. You have to be willing
to either have or learn the skills that it takes
to do this job. So you need to know about
white collared criminal law. You need to know a little
bit about accounting obviously, you need to know how investigations work.
But more important than all of that, you have to
be willing to tell the truth even when it hurts.
(09:49):
You have to be willing to tell the truth about
how taxpayer money got spent. And you have to be
willing to do that because your responsibility, your boss are
the taxpayers. I'm not willing to do that. You've got
to go find a different job.
Speaker 3 (10:03):
He's Mississippi State Auditor Shad White. Mississippi Swindle is the
book Brett Farbe and the Welfare scandal that's shocked America.
It'll shock you and it's a musk read from the
words of the of the New York Times. Thank you
for joining us.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Thank you, brother, I appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee
Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live
weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia Presentation
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