How to Steal Millions From Those Who Need It Most: The Brett Favre Playbook

out of the nearly 27 000 men who have played professionally in the national football league's history Brett Favre ranks 22nd in total career earnings with 137 million 829 thousand dollars in NFL contract money out of the 50 United States though Brett Favre's home of Mississippi ranks dead last in terms of average household income with nearly one in five of its citizens living below the poverty line a staggering percentage in a state whose government has struggled for decades to make any forward progress in that metric for many former and active NFL players it's a blessing to be in a position to give back to the communities that have supported you throughout your life and career whether that's Marshawn Lynch dedicating his time to underserved youth in his hometown of Oakland or Chris Long donating his 2017 game checks to educational equity in the three cities he spent his NFL career playing for for a very long time Brett Favre has been considered among these philanthropic Heroes serving as one of the most beloved sons of Mississippi history with multiple charitable foundations in his name but there's a reason they say you should never meet your heroes or read their text messages because just beneath that facade of compassion and concern hid one of the most Sinister exploits ever attempted by a professional athlete as it stands today Brett Favre is alleged to have orchestrated a 5 million dollar Heist from the neediest people in America's neediest state and instead funneled that money to fund and construct a volleyball complex at his alma mater the University of Southern Mississippi if that sounds bad I assure you it only gets worse from here but before we delve into the grisly details of defrauding estate's welfare program for personal gain I for one try to make my money without taking it from the poor so instead here is a fully disclosed ad for this video's kind sponsor hellofresh if you haven't heard of them before hellofresh is the top dog among meal kit delivery 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link below so one more huge thank you to hellofresh and now let's get back to the video if you walk up to any one football fan on the street and ask them to describe Brett Favre's Legacy on the field the one word you're going to hear the most is the type of player who never minded getting his hands dirty and throwing the most interceptions of anyone by a massive margin so long as it all balanced out in the end with a ring on his finger and a bust of his head in Canton the ends justify the means after all of course even during farv's career he was no stranger to controversy be it something annoying like his never-ending dance with retirement or something criminal like his alleged sexual harassment of a Jets reporter and team massage therapist back in 2008 but once Brett Favre walked away from the field for the actual final time he chose to entangle himself in a whole new high-risk game politics and skeevy business Endeavors eventually developing a bit of a reputation in Mississippi for the latter but becoming a pharmaceutical Peddler can only take up so many hours in your day so far found a new passion centering around volleyball which his daughter was beginning to excel in it was wholesome dad stuff really conducting interviews about how his love of the sport had grown or showing up at his daughter's events all around the country she even went on to play for Southern Mississippi just like pops so what better way to support both her and his alma mater than to construct a brand new state-of-the-art volleyball facility on usm's campus combined with his already legendary status there that sounds like a perfect storm the only issue is a project like that costs an unknown sum of millions of dollars thankfully for farv with Mississippi's culture of celebrity worship his hometown status had already afforded him the influence needed to move mountains without spending a single dime of his own to understand how a former NFL quarterback's pet project was awarded millions of dollars in state welfare funds we've got to take a step back and look at the massive web of fraud that has been and continues to be uncovered surrounding Mississippi's Department of Human Services nearly all the public information about this case became public thanks in large part to years of excellent investigative journalism by the publication Mississippi today and Anna wolf I highly recommend you give them a look if you want even more depth and donate to their work as well at the link in the description farf allegedly played a key role in securing over 5 million dollars in welfare funding for the construction of this volleyball facility but despite the sheer magnitude of that fraud it's just one fraction of a total 77 million dollars that were misallocated from the state's welfare Fund in what's been termed the largest case of public embezzlement in Mississippi's history so farv is far from the only problem here trust me there are zero heroes in this story but for now let's focus on how far of himself allegedly leveraged a substantial slice of the federal funds that were intended for the most disadvantaged people in his home state the stadium Endeavor first launched in 2017 just one year after Brett Favre's Hall of Fame induction cemented him as Bonafide Mississippi royalty once the idea came to him farv began having conversations with some very influential figures in Mississippi politics including then Governor Phil Bryant and a certain non-profit director by the name of Nancy new both of whom happen to also be Southern Miss alums just like Brett new was also coincidentally an excellent friend of Bryant's wife and the non-profit she ran which doled out grants to at need causes was coincidentally one of the best funded operations in the state rather than Mississippi state government dictating the best use of this money to lift citizens out of poverty instead new and her non-profit were given full discretion over the funds this meant that out of public view the definition of atnied causes could be bent and even mangled to shift this money to places you would never otherwise see it go under the guise of welfare when farf came knocking a July 2 2017 meeting was arranged that included farv new and a number of Mississippi welfare officials even including the director of the State's Department of Human Services John Davis before they went their separate ways that day four million dollars of mdhs funding had been verbally committed to this volleyball project why so quickly well your guess is just as good as mine but Brett Favre's Stadium dream wasn't in the clear yet for a number of different reasons first as was conveyed in text messages from Brett Favre to Nancy new the University was straight up nervous about accepting such a large amount of Federal grant money this was made worse by the fact that it was directly prohibited that money from TANF which stands for temporary assistance for needy families could be spent on the construction of brick and mortar buildings in other words building a volleyball stadium with this money was just transparently illegal second even if they took this money they still didn't have enough to guarantee full funding for construction which was a USM policy however because of News free control over these grants what should have been very real obstacles merely required some clever legal maneuvering in order to check boxes and quiet suspicions first things first more money and right off the bat Brett came up with an idea that was likely inspired by his already colorful career in advertising I could record a few radio spots here initially I'm sure right here see how it is received and whatever compensation could go to USM to funnel more money into the volleyball stadium farv and new agree that in total an additional 1.1 million in Grant dollars on top of the 4 million already will be paid too far personally made legal by far of agreeing to speaking obligations that would promote Families First for Mississippi ultimately farv cut a few radio ads for the organization but no public appearances ever materialized despite receiving the full sum of cash for the record farv now denies that he ever even agreed to said speaking engagements if you were to pay me is there any way the media can find out where it came from and how much no we have never had that information publicized I understand you being uneasy about that though Nancy Santa came today and dropped some money off thank you my goodness thank you we need to set up the promo for you soon you're way too kind now it's worth mentioning here as well that Brett Favre has his own charity Foundation far for Hope which has the stated mission of raising funds for disadvantaged children and cancer patients but as was recently reported by the athletic from the years 2018 to 2020 while farv was allegedly involved in spearheading the funding drive for southern Miss's new volleyball facility far for Hope donated over a hundred thirty thousand dollars to usm's athletic Foundation sixty thousand dollars in 2018 nearly forty seven thousand in 2019 and just over 26 000 in 2020. during that time frame no other organization received a donation of over eleven thousand dollars in a single year again I'll reiterate this charity stated mission is to support disadvantaged children and cancer patients now back to making sure the Project's funding is technically allowed under federal law attorneys from the State's Department of Human Services put in work to craft an agreement that gave the illusion that the Project's intention was to assist those in poverty first and foremost at one point farvin knew even discussed putting Governor Phil Bryant's name on the building maybe as a thank you for allegedly helping guide them through the legal tightropes that exist to prevent exactly what was being attempted hint that you need to reword it to get it accepted listen all right these four million welfare dollars are not for a volleyball Stadium okay this is a lease agreement for Nancy news non-profit to host some Community programs on campus that way right in the middle of this College events like rallies or parenting classes can be held and assist those that are in poverty surely all of us together can lock arms and agree this is the most effective use of four million dollars of welfare in the poorest state in the Union regardless that concept was enough for approval and over the next few years money would continue to trickle into the project with cost-cutting measures still being brainstormed at every corner my personal favorite is a 2018 text from farv to Governor Phil Bryant passing along the idea that maybe the prison system could be utilized for cheaper construction can't say that I had considered that one eventually things were moving so swimmingly that farv even contacted Bryant again with the idea to build a brand new football facility this time presume with even more money from the same fund though that project never materialized it wouldn't be until early 2020 that the USM Wellness Center yes that is its official name would open its doors unfortunately with very little Fanfare due to the global pandemic going on so considering the timeline of all of these events why is it that we are just now learning of this years after the fact well like I mentioned earlier this case of defrauding Mississippi's welfare fund of tens of millions of dollars is much larger than just Brett Favre in early 2020 that scheme began to unravel when State Auditors questioned whether massive sums of money were being spent inappropriately culminating in the arrest of six individuals including former mdhs director John Davis and the one and only Nancy knew the Fallout of this audit over the following years was far-reaching with a civil suit filed by the State's Department of Human Services to recoup 20 million dollars in misspent funds including the 1.1 million dollars far received personally demanded back in full with interest as far as it is known farf eventually returned the 1.1 million after some considerable resistance but he still has refused to pay the 228 thousand dollars in interest that Still Remains also brought to light in all of this was the fact that 2.15 million dollars in welfare funds had been funneled from news non-profit to a pharmaceutical company called previcus one that far backed personally it may not be the best of looks but farff maintains that he had no idea the funds paid to him or USM were intended to go to those in need why then that he would be nervous about the media finding out the source of the money if that's the case well your guess is just as good as mine earlier this year in 2022 Nancy knew and her son Zach pleaded guilty to charges of bribery and fraud regarding the misallocation of welfare funds and as part of their deal with the state they agreed to testify against fellow co-defendants involved in the scheme that's why Public Access has been granted to these text exchanges that were obviously never intended to see the light of day also federally indicted recently on September 15 2022 was former mdhs director John Davis who pleaded guilty to counts of conspiracy theft and defrauding the government and to take away that that was leaded by those who didn't need help you have 32 years to think about that Davis like the news has also agreed to cooperate with prosecutors so what direction these legal proceedings go in next or which Domino is next to fall remains to be seen many in both Mississippi and Beyond want to know what kind of Retribution may be awaiting Brett Favre for his alleged role in all of this but the reality is that the lack of clarity around farv's knowledge of what was really taking place makes it difficult to pin down blatant Criminal action with the evidence available we the public may have our suspicions regarding the text sent the actions taken the loopholes created the overall perceived immorality of it all but even still that doesn't always translate to illegality in a court of law that ultimately is what makes this Brett Favre situation so infuriating to read or talk about because as is often the case the most powerful and influential Among Us are subject to a different set of rules and once you're up in that Tower you have to mess things up really horribly for the consequences of your actions to one day find you farv's concern expressed in those texts wasn't over the legitimacy of the money he was receiving the legal implications of accepting the funds or the risk of wrongdoing it was concern for his Public Image which he needed to further his interests but if a tarnishing of farv's public reputation is all that comes of this Scandal as he's apparently most concerned about there's reason to believe that even that won't have much of an impact considering that if you look on social media or television the coverage of this Brett Favre story is mostly focused around how there is basically no coverage of this Brett Favre story that relative Silence has raised questions of how this might be playing out differently if farv were not a white member of Mississippi royalty which is especially ironic considering the issues that drive the need for funds like what was stolen are inseparable from Mississippi's history of racial inequality what's important to keep in mind through all of this is that no matter what happens from here on out to farv or any one else the damage is already done there's no amount of PR control that can change the fact that millions of dollars were stolen from those who needed it most in Mississippi this is a state who consistently ranks in the bottom 10 of metrics for Quality of Life Education Public Health a state whose capital city of Jackson is still in the midst of a Water Crisis that left over a hundred thousand citizens without drinkable water and a state where children are separated from their families and placed into an underfunded Foster system because their caretakers don't have the means or opportunities that the state's social safety net is supposed to be helping to provide that is who you swindled millions of dollars from and even in giving the benefit of the doubt to far of course all in my personal opinion here at the very least he was clearly comfortable with keeping his mouth shut and turning a blind eye to where that money originated from farv May well be one public-facing rotten egg but this story shines a light on the fact that political corruption is as pervasive as ever in American politics and one can only hope that an example continues to be made of a case of blatant fraud as massive and widespread as Mississippi's because at the end of the day protecting and aiding the most vulnerable people in our communities is the absolute bare minimum that you can ask of these individuals with the power to influence people's lives For Better or For Worse

Channel: Set the Edge

Views: 127,003

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Id: Efp3_TjHuYY

Length: 17min 53sec (1073 seconds)

Published: Sat Oct 22 2022