Brett Favre is ready to testify Tuesday at a listening to of the Home Methods and Means Committee inspecting welfare reform, the panel confirmed to The Hill, an look that comes after the previous NFL star confronted allegations of utilizing Short-term Help for Needy Households (TANF) state funds for company features.
Favre was accused of encouraging native officers to make use of welfare cash to construct an athletic facility and help the manufacture of a concussion drug. A Mississippi state audit discovered that some $5 million in TANF assets was reallocated to pay for the development of a volleyball facility at Favre’s alma mater — the College of Southern Mississippi, the place his daughter was then taking part in volleyball — and that $1.7 million was directed towards an organization named Prevacus, which is working to develop the concussion remedy and the place he’s an investor.
The previous quarterback additionally acquired $1.1 million in talking charges for speeches he by no means gave, which his attorneys say he has repaid.
The Mississippi Division of Human Companies pursued a civil lawsuit towards him and different defendants, citing textual content messages between Favre and state officers as proof of his involvement in embezzling funds.
So far, he has not been charged criminally, however a few of his alleged co-conspirators have. Prevacus’s founder, Jacob VanLandingham, pleaded responsible to wire fraud in July.
“What is important is that he knew that he had to kind of finagle the purpose of this grant and the purpose of this building in order to satisfy federal regulations. They couldn’t just say it was a volleyball stadium. They were calling it a wellness center,” Anna Wolfe, the reporter who broke the scandal for Mississippi Right this moment, instructed Wisconsin Public Radio host Kate Archer Kent. “… They said that the building was going to serve underprivileged families by holding rallies and maybe having some office space in the building where people could come get services.”
Favre will doubtless be requested to talk to his actions on the committee listening to, titled “Reforming Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF): States’ Misuse of Welfare Funds Leaves Poor Families Behind.”
“No one ever told me, and I did not know, that funds designated for welfare recipients were going to the University or me,” Favre mentioned within the assertion to Fox Information after the story broke. “I tried to help my alma mater USM, a public Mississippi state university, raise funds for a wellness center. My goal was and always will be to improve the athletic facilities at my university.”
