On a Saturday full of upsets, Sun Belt teams took down two Top-10 teams and took home a boatload of cash in the process. Is this a new trend, or an anomaly? Also, the Cleveland boys talk about big games upcoming this weekend, whether or not the Braves should make a change at closer and the Saints’ come-from-behind win over the Falcons.
Stream all episodes here.
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Reporter Alex Rozier and the Mississippi Today newsroom have won the September Sidney Award for their coverage of the Jackson water crisis.
The drinking water system in Jackson — Mississippi’s largest city and home to more than 150,000 residents — failed in late August, leaving thousands of capital city residents with low or no water pressure and little information about when service would be restored.
Mississippi Today’s newsroom sprang to action, deploying every journalist on staff to the story to provide accurate, timely information residents needed immediately. The staff has published more than five dozen stories about the crisis so far in September, covering a broad range of angles. The journalists also relied on public records to add investigative context to why the water system had failed and what was needed to fix it.
The newsroom circulated a text messaging line to reach Jacksonians directly, published an FAQ post, provided resource pages about where to find water and mutual aid links, and partnered with local television station WJTV to stream every major news conference live.
READ MORE: Mississippi Today’s complete coverage of the Jackson water crisis
“Covering this crisis is deeply personal for us,” said Mississippi Today Managing Editor Kayleigh Skinner, highlighting that most newsroom reporters live inside the city limits themselves. “When readers send in questions about whether it’s safe to use their dishwasher, or where in the city they can go to receive free bottled water, we do our best to find them answers because it’s our job, but also because it’s information we need, too.”
The Sidney Award is awarded to outstanding journalism that appeared in the prior month. It is run by the Sidney Hillman Foundation, which honors excellence in journalism in service of the common good, and upholds the legacy and vision of union pioneer and New Deal architect Sidney Hillman.
Winners so far in 2022 are: The Washington Post, Miami Herald, THE CITY, Reuters, The New York Times, ProPublica, Austin American-Statesman and KVUE-TV, and now Mississippi Today.
Mississippi Today’s deep understanding and long-standing coverage of the Jackson water crisis contributed significantly to the newsroom’s winning, Sidney judges wrote.
“Mississippi Today has been on this story for years,” said Sidney judge Lindsay Beyerstein. “They’re proceeding with determination, creativity and compassion, which shines through in their ongoing coverage.”
Alex Rozier is Mississippi Today’s data and environment reporter and has covered the Jackson water crisis and flooding for several years. He leads the Mississippi Today Jackson water crisis team, which consists of Anna Wolfe, Geoff Pender, Julia James, Molly Minta, Rick Cleveland, Bobby Harrison, Mina Corpuz, Kate Royals, Isabelle Taft, Will Stribling, Adam Ganucheau, Kayleigh Skinner, Sara DiNatale, Lauchlin Fields, Bethany Atkinson, Nigel Dent, Alyssa Bass, Eric Shelton, Vickie King and Marshall Ramsey.
Sidney Award judges are Jamelle Bouie, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Alix Freedman, Harold Meyerson, Katrina vanden Heuvel, and Lindsay Beyerstein.
READ MORE: Mississippi Today wins September Sidney for Crusading Coverage of Jackson Water Crisis
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Mississippi nurses who take care of sexual assault victims are worried that the state’s abortion ban could force them to stop offering emergency contraception – and they’re not getting any answers from the state’s chief legal officer.
Months ago, following the Dobbs ruling that allowed an abortion ban to take effect in Mississippi, a group of forensic nurses reached out to Attorney General Lynn Fitch’s office for guidance.
Michelle Williams, Fitch’s chief of staff, never answered their questions about abortion laws – including whether emergency contraception was legal.
When pressed by Mississippi Today, Williams said, “You can look at the law. You can decide whether or not it’s legal. But it is.”
Williams said she had responded to the first part of the email that asked about a project to update the state’s rape kits, which she considered “most relevant,” and then thought the conversation was finished.
The lack of response left the group of sexual assault nurse examiners concerned about potential legal consequences but determined to keep serving their patients.
“I’m going to continue to provide the emergency contraception as long as we have it available and give the education and resources that I always have,” said Alizbeth Eaves, one of the state’s few certified sexual assault nurse examiners and the trauma and SANE program manager at Ochsner Rush in Meridian. “But I am afraid that I’m going to be told, ‘That was against the law, and you’re in big trouble for it.’”
Through a records request, Mississippi Today obtained an email sent on July 18 by Shalotta Sharp, special projects coordinator at the Mississippi Coalition Against Sexual Assault, listing legal questions forensic nurses have about how the state’s new ban on abortion could affect their work.
Sharp, who has decades of experience as a certified sexual assault nurse examiner and is a long-time leader in the field in Mississippi, asked if emergency contraception is now outlawed. She also wanted clarification as to whether medical professionals can refer a patient to an abortion provider in another state.
“We are very thankful for any guidance and direction,” she concluded. “Thank you for your guidance and help!”
Williams responded that same day. She said she was on vacation but had proposed changes to crime victims compensation rules to review and should get back to Sharp soon. She did not acknowledge the other questions about the abortion law.
Sharp never heard from Williams after that. She had reached out to the attorney general’s office, she said, because the chief law enforcement officer is responsible for providing clarity about what the law actually requires.
“We certainly don’t want to be doing anything illegal,” she said. “But we also want what’s best for our patients.”
Mississippi Today told Sharp that Williams said emergency contraception is legal.
“If they’re saying that emergency contraception is not considered abortive, and it’s legal, literally that’s all I want to hear,” she said.
Under the updated rape kit the Attorney General’s Office produced in collaboration with the Mississippi chapter of the International Association of Forensic Nurses this year, the state continues to reimburse medical providers for “medication treatment for prevention of… pregnancy” for victims of sexual assault, regardless of whether the victim reports to law enforcement.
Only government entities, like counties, legislators and state agencies, can request official opinions from the attorney general, so Sharp’s email did not constitute a formal opinion request. Williams said the office can’t provide opinions outside that channel and that guidance for medical professionals comes from “any number of boards in the state.”
“We’ve been kind of left on read so to speak,” Eaves said. “It’s very frustrating that you’re going to have a trigger law in place and activate that trigger law without giving clear definitions and guidelines.”
Emergency contraception is recognized as part of the standard of care for victims of sexual assault by organizations like the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. A copper intrauterine device is the most effective form and is about 99.9% successful at preventing pregnancy if placed within 120 hours of intercourse. Pills like ella and Plan B are also used in Mississippi hospitals.
Emergency contraception does not end a pregnancy– generally, it stops ovulation so an egg cannot be fertilized. But sometimes, the treatment can function by stopping a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus.
“Where are we calling conception at?” Eaves said. “Because if we’re talking about when the sperm meets the egg, that could potentially take emergency contraception away.”
Some pro-life organizations consider the medication a form of abortion. The advocacy group Pro-Life Mississippi lists “Morning After Pill” on its website under “Types of Abortion.”
Attorneys general in other states have been willing to publicly clarify that emergency contraception is legal. In Missouri, a spokesperson for the office said state law — which bans abortion except in medical emergencies — did not prohibit Plan B after a local hospital said it would stop providing the medication because the “law is ambiguous.”
Mississippi’s ban on abortion defines abortion as “any instrument, medicine, drug or any other substance or device to terminate the pregnancy of a woman known to be pregnant.” During the period when emergency contraception is effective, pregnancy tests do not yet detect pregnancy.
“Obviously, when a person takes emergency contraception, she does not know she is pregnant and may well not be,” said Rob McDuff, a lawyer with the Mississippi Center for Justice, which represented the state’s last abortion clinic before it closed. “Emergency contraception continues to be perfectly legal.”
Forensic nurses interviewed by Mississippi Today said they are still providing emergency contraception to victims of sexual assault.
“We’re just prescribing it left and right,” said one nurse, who asked that her name not be used because she did not have permission from her employer to talk to the media.
But she’s worried about the future.
“That in itself is scary, that they (the Attorney General’s office) won’t just commit to saying, ‘Emergency contraception is okay,’” she said.
Eaves said the stakes of providing emergency contraception now feel higher than ever. If someone becomes pregnant following a rape, she is legally allowed to get an abortion in Mississippi only if “a formal charge of rape has been filed with an appropriate law enforcement official.”
That requirement makes Mississippi’s post-Dobbs abortion ban more restrictive than at almost any point in state history. When lawmakers added an exception to the state’s 1952 abortion ban for rape in 1966, they considered requiring a local chancery judge to first determine that a rape had occurred. But they rejected this idea because it would “require making the case a matter of public record and cause embarrassment to a wronged woman.”
Now, state leaders appear to have no such concerns.
Read the forensic nurses’ letter to the Attorney General’s Office:
9/14/22: This story has been updated to include a comment from Rob McDuff.
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The Mississippi State Department of Health announced on Tuesday that appointments for the new bivalent COVID-19 booster shot are now available at all county health department clinics.
The Food and Drug Administration approved the new booster formulation on Aug. 31, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention followed suit the next day. The release of the boosters is the largest part of government efforts to get ahead of a potential seasonal surge in infections.
“We strongly recommend that anyone eligible should go ahead and receive the updated booster now to provide the best protection against COVID-19 infection and severe complications from COVID-19,” State Epidemiologist Dr. Paul Byers said in a press release. “There is always the possibility of increased cases as we move into the fall and winter months. Don’t wait to protect yourself.”
The new booster shot is a bivalent vaccine, which means that it targets two versions of COVID-19. While the original booster shot only targeted the original strain of the virus, the new booster also targets the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron subvariants.
Mississippians who want to get the new booster can make appointments through the website or by calling the health department’s COVID-19 hotline at 877-978-6453.
People aged 12 and older who have been fully vaccinated are eligible for the new booster, regardless of whether they received other booster doses. A person can only receive the new booster at least two months out from their last shot.
If you’ve recently had COVID-19, you can receive a booster as soon as your isolation period ends. However, the CDC says you may consider delaying any additional shots by three months from when your symptoms started or you received a positive test. The reasoning behind this optional delay is that someone who has just recovered from COVID-19 will likely already have a high level of antibodies, which could cause the effects of additional shots to be reduced.
Children between the ages of 5 and 11 are only eligible for the original booster shot, though the FDA is working on making the new booster available for this age group.
This is the first COVID-19 vaccine released to the public before data from human trials had been analyzed. The Biden Administration has compared the new booster to the annual flu shot, which is reformulated each year to target the latest versions of influenza and tested on animals before being released to the public.
An average of 832 cases per day are currently being reported across the state. However, the true infection rate is unknown because of the increased availability and utilization of at-home tests, which are not reported to the health department. The rate of cases, hospitalizations and deaths plummeted across the state after the peak of the omicron wave in January, but have been steadily increasing again since May.
Mississippi remains one of the least vaccinated states in America. As of Sept. 8, 61% of the state’s population had received one dose, 53% were fully vaccinated and 21% had received a booster shot, according to CDC data.
The state has reported 918,874 total cases, meaning that since the beginning of the pandemic, at least one-third of Mississippians have been infected with COVID-19. 12,821 Mississippians have died from the virus.
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House Speaker Philip Gunn on Tuesday announced membership of a bipartisan group of lawmakers who’ve been serving on a “Commission on Life” panel to guide post-abortion ban policies for the House.
Gunn announced he was creating such a commission in June after the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling on a Mississippi case that overturned Roe vs. Wade abortion rights. He said the ruling would bring “new challenges” for Mississippi to make sure “those who are born have the resources they need.”
Mississippi, the poorest state in the nation, suffers from lack of prenatal, postnatal and all other forms of health care. It also has the highest infant mortality rate in the nation and one of the highest maternal death rates. It has for years faced federal court decrees to address its substandard foster care and children’s services system.
In a press release Gunn indicated his new commission has already been working, apparently in private, and has “already identified the following areas of need:”
Gunn said the commission is guided by principles that families are best for children; the private sector, churches and non-profits “must step forward to answer the need;” and “government must stay in its lane and up its game,” but expanding government is not the best way to meet challenges.
Members of Gunn’s commission are: Reps. Otis Anthony, D-Sunflower; Cedric Burnett, D-Tunica; Angela Cockerham, I-Amite; Kevin Felsher, R-Biloxi; Jill Ford, R-Madison; Debra Gibbs, D-Jackson; Missy McGee, R-Hattiesburg; Dana Underwood McLean, R-Columbus; Sam Mims, R-McComb and Lee Yancey, R-Brandon.
Gunn said the commission is considering legislation such as expanding tax credits for crisis pregnancy centers, making adoption easier and incentivizing employers to “employ mothers during and after their pregnancy.”
Gunn’s release said, “We will provide the public with updates as we develop more specific proposals.”
In the Senate, Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has created a nine-member “Senate Study Group on Women, Children and Families” tasked with guiding policy. The Senate panel has scheduled four public hearings beginning later this month, and has asked for written input from the public.
The Senate group will hold hearings at the Capitol on Sept. 27 and 28, and on Oct. 25 and 26. The hearings will be webcast, archived and open to the public. The public is invited to email written testimony to WCFStudyGroup@senate.ms.gov. The comments will be presented to the full committee.
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Gov. Tate Reeves asked the U.S. Small Business Administration to open low-interest disaster loans to Hinds County businesses hurt by the Jackson water crisis in a formal letter Monday.
“Jackson businesses have been hit incredibly hard by the ongoing water crisis,” Reeves said in a statement. “They have shown their resilience and their commitment to this city throughout the years, and my administration will continue to do everything it can to support them during this difficult time.”
In his letter to the program’s director, Reeves outlined how businesses from daycares to restaurants had to shut down when they lost water pressure. Restaurants that have been open have had a major loss of customers while harboring extra expenses to buy clean water to keep their doors open.
READ MORE: As Jackson water crisis persists, restaurateurs worry customers are scared to dine out
Some businesses also took on the costs of portable toilets when their own could not flush. Hotels, the governor mentioned, also have had a sharp decline in overnight stays.
“Overall, with little to no running water throughout the city, businesses could not serve, clean, cool, or sanitize, forcing them to either suffer losses or temporarily shut down,” the letter says.
In order to prove the county could qualify for the loan program, the governor’s office had to survey local businesses and show at least five small businesses “suffered substantial economic injury.”
Restaurants and other affected businesses filled out paperwork about their costs and losses to Mississippi Emergency Management Agency, giving the governor the data needed to apply to the program.
If activated, individual businesses could receive up to $2 million in SBA loans under the disaster program to help with expenses and obligations that could have been met had the water crisis not occurred. The loan amount a business can receive will be based on its economic injury and the company’s financial needs.
The program’s interest rate does not exceed 4%.
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Text messages entered Monday into the state’s ongoing civil lawsuit over the welfare scandal reveal that former Gov. Phil Bryant pushed to make NFL legend Brett Favre’s volleyball idea a reality.
The texts show that the then-governor even guided Favre on how to write a funding proposal so that it could be accepted by the Mississippi Department of Human Services – even after Bryant ousted the former welfare agency director John Davis for suspected fraud.
“Just left Brett Favre,” Bryant texted nonprofit founder Nancy New in July of 2019, within weeks of Davis’ departure. “Can we help him with his project. We should meet soon to see how I can make sure we keep your projects on course.”
When Favre asked Bryant how the new agency director might affect their plans to fund the volleyball stadium, Bryant assured him, “I will handle that… long story but had to make a change. But I will call Nancy and see what it will take,” according to the filing and a text Favre forwarded to New.
The newly released texts, filed Monday by an attorney representing Nancy New’s nonprofit, show that Bryant, Favre, New, Davis and others worked together to channel at least $5 million of the state’s welfare funds to build a new volleyball stadium at University of Southern Mississippi, where Favre’s daughter played the sport. Favre received most of the credit for raising funds to construct the facility.
Bryant has for years denied any close involvement in the steering of welfare funds to the volleyball stadium, though plans for the project even included naming the building after him, one text shows.
New, a friend of Bryant’s wife Deborah, ran a nonprofit that was in charge of spending tens of millions of flexible federal welfare dollars outside of public view. What followed was the biggest public fraud case in state history, according to the state auditor’s office. Nonprofit leaders had misspent at least $77 million in funds that were supposed to help the needy, forensic auditors found.
New pleaded guilty to 13 felony counts related to the scheme, and Davis awaits trial. But neither Bryant nor Favre have been charged with any crime.
And while the state-of-the-art facility represents the single largest known fraudulent purchase within the scheme, according to one of the criminal defendant’s plea agreement, the state is not pursuing the matter in its ongoing civil complaint. Current Gov. Tate Reeves abruptly fired the attorney bringing the state’s case when he tried to subpoena documents related to the volleyball stadium.
The messages also show that a separate $1.1 million welfare contract Favre received to promote the program – the subject of many national headlines – was simply a way to get more funding to the volleyball project.
“I could record a few radio spots,” Favre texted New, according to the new filing. “…and whatever compensation could go to USM.”
New, who is now aiding prosecutors as part of her plea deal, alleged that Bryant directed her to make the payment to Favre in a bombshell response to the complaint in July.
The allegation and defense “are not based on speculation or conjecture,” the Monday court filing reads. “The evidence suggests that MDHS Executives, including Governor Bryant, knew that Favre was seeking funds from MDHS to build the Volleyball Facility … and participated in directing, approving, or providing Favre MDHS funds to be used for construction of the Volleyball Facility.”
The latest motion, filed on behalf of New’s nonprofit Mississippi Community Education Center, represents the first time these messages, which include texts directly between New and Bryant and New and Favre, have been made public. The messages are printed here exactly as they appear in the filing without corrections.
In July, the attorney for New and the nonprofit, Gerry Bufkin, filed a subpoena on Bryant asking for the former governor’s communication related to the volleyball project.
On Aug. 26, Bryant’s recently-hired attorney Billy Quin filed an objection to the subpoena, refusing to turn over the records without a protective order. Quin argued that Bryant’s texts are protected by executive privilege and that producing them to the public would run afoul of existing gag orders in the criminal cases.
Bufkin’s latest motion includes texts that the attorney picked, not entire text threads, and may only reflect one side of the story. In a short statement to Mississippi Today for this story, Bryant didn’t offer an explanation for his communication.
“(The New defense team’s) refusal to agree to a protective order, along with their failure to convey the Governor’s position to the court, unfortunately shows they are more concerned with pretrial publicity than they are with civil justice,” Bryant said.
Bufkin’s motion asks for the court to compel Bryant to produce the documents, arguing they are central to New’s defense.
“Defendant reasonably relied on then-Governor Phil Bryant, acting within his broad statutory authority as chief executive of the State,” reads New’s July response to the complaint, “including authority over MDHS and TANF, and his extensive knowledge of Permissible TANF Expenditures from 12 years as State Auditor, four years as Lieutenant Governor, and a number of years as Governor leading up to and including the relevant time period.”
Bufkin told Mississippi Today that the governor’s involvement in building the volleyball stadium, suggested by the text messages, “lends an air of credibility to the project, which is important to our defenses.”
“We do not believe a protective order shielding the Governor’s documents from public view, and thus limiting our ability to use them in open court or public pleadings in support of our defenses, is appropriate,” Bufkin said.
Federal regulations prohibit states from using money from the welfare program, called Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), on “brick and mortar,” or the construction of buildings.
The scheme to circumvent federal regulations in order to build the volleyball stadium has already resulted in a criminal conviction.
New’s son Zach New admitted in his April plea agreement to defrauding the government when he participated in a scheme “to disguise the USM construction project as a ‘lease’ as a means of circumventing the limited purpose grant’s strict prohibition against ‘brick and mortar’ construction projects in violation of Miss. Code Ann. 97-7-10.”
Favre’s attorney Bud Holmes denied that the athlete knew the money he received was from the welfare fund. “Brett Favre has been honorable throughout this whole thing,” Holmes said Monday.
When Mississippi Today asked Favre by text in 2020 if he had discussed the volleyball project with the governor, Favre said, simply: “No.”
The motion filed Monday offers a detailed look at the earliest days of the planning of the USM volleyball center between Favre, New, Davis and other key players — a chronology that had not up to this point been publicly revealed.
Favre first asked for funding from Mississippi Department of Human Services during a July 24, 2017, meeting at USM with New, Davis, university athletic staff and others, according to the motion.
By this time, the University of Southern Mississippi and the Southern Miss Athletic Foundation, which would pay for the construction, had already made some progress on Favre’s idea. On July 1, according to records, the university leased its athletic facilities and fields to the foundation for $1, which made it possible for the foundation to lease the facilities to the New nonprofit for $5 million.
Because of the strict prohibition on using TANF funds to pay for construction, the parties had to craft an agreement that would look to satisfy federal law and give the illusion they were helping needy families. With the help of legal advice from MDHS attorneys, they came up with the idea for New’s nonprofit to enter a $5 million up-front lease of the university’s athletic facilities, which the nonprofit would purportedly use for programming. And in exchange, the foundation would include offices for the nonprofit inside the volleyball facility, which they called a “Wellness Center.”
Davis immediately committed $4 million to the project, according to the motion.
“While Favre was pleased with MDHS’s $4 million commitment, he knew a state-of-the-art Volleyball Facility was likely to cost more,” the filing reads. “To make matters worse, USM apparently had a policy that any construction project on campus had to be funded fully, and the money deposited in USM’s account, before construction could begin.”
Favre thought of a way to get some extra cash to the program: even more money could flow through his company in exchange for the athlete cutting ads for the state’s welfare program. New said she thought it was a good idea.
“Was just thinking that here is the way to do it!!” Favre texted.
Only days after Favre received the financial commitment from Davis, he “had grown impatient with USM, which was moving slowly. Favre contacted Governor Bryant to speed things along. In response, Governor Bryant called Nancy New,” the motion reads.
“Wow,” New texted Favre, “just got off the phone with Phil Bryant! He is on board with us! We will get this done!”
The governor remained in tune on the project as it progressed. On Nov. 2, 2017, New texted Favre, “I saw the Gov last night … it’s all going to work out.”
Four days later, New’s nonprofit paid the first lump sum of $2.5 million. It paid another $2.5 million on Dec. 5, 2017, according to the state auditor’s office report released in 2020. Favre also received his first payment under the advertising agreement of $500,000 in December 2017.
“Nancy Santa came today and dropped some money off,” Favre texted New that day, “thank you my goodness thank you. We need to setup the promo for you soon. Your way to kind.”
The nonprofit paid the athlete another $600,000 in June 2018.
By 2019, as the cost of construction for the volleyball center grew and Favre had committed to pay more than $1 million himself that he expected to receive from MDHS, the athlete became antsy. According to a calendar entry entered by Davis, Bryant and Favre requested to meet with welfare officials about the USM facility in January of 2019.
Favre nudged the welfare officials who promised to help, but the state agency and nonprofits were in financial turmoil. Months went by with no USM payments.
In June of 2019, Bryant ousted Davis after an MDHS employee came forward with a tip about suspected fraud. Bryant replaced Davis with former FBI Special Agent in Charge Christopher Freeze.
When Favre asked Bryant if Davis’ departure would affect the project, according to the motion, the governor responded, “I will handle that… long story but had to make a change. But I will call Nancy and see what it will take.”
“Just left Brett Favre,” Bryant then texted New. “Can we help him with his project. We should meet soon to see how I can make sure we keep your projects on course.”
Later that day, New texted Favre to tell him that she would be meeting with the governor in two days.
“He wants me to continue to help you and us get our project done,” she said.
With the new guard in place at the top of the welfare agency, Favre and New tried to put together a proposal for more volleyball funding that would pass the smell test. Part of their plan was to put Bryant’s name on the building, according to one text from New to Favre. Favre relayed to New that Bryant said New would have to submit proper paperwork to MDHS.
“While the Governor’s text to Favre said New needed to ‘get the paperwork in,’ the Governor confided to Favre on a call that he had already seen Favre’s proposal. Favre texted New, ‘[the Governor] said to me just a second ago that he has seen [the funding proposal] but hint hint that you need to reword it to get it accepted,” reads New’s motion.
New had questions about how to reword the proposal, but instead of having a conversation directly with the governor, she relied on what the governor would tell Favre, the texts show.
“Hopefully she can put more details in the proposal,” Bryant said, according to a text Favre forwarded to New. “Like how many times the facility will be used and how many child will be served and for what specific purpose.”
Favre later texted, “I really feel like he is trying to figure out a way to get it done without actually saying it.”
Favre, New, Bryant and Freeze met in September 2019 to discuss progress on the new facility.
Though the texts illustrate the governor’s support for the program around that time, Bryant said in an April 2022 interview with Mississippi Today that he rejected the request from New and Favre fund the project further.
“I stood up and I said, ‘No,’” Bryant told Mississippi Today. “… I remember a meeting with Nancy New and Chris (Freeze), and maybe it was another one, and me. And she came in one more time, ‘Volleyball, volleyball.’ And she said, ‘My budgets have been cut and I can’t do all of these things … And that’s another thing: ‘Budgets are cut,’ so I’m thinking somebody’s watching over spending. And then she said, ‘And oh, by the way, can we have the money for the volleyball?’ And I said, ‘No. No, we’re not spending anything right now. That is terminated.’”
Two days after the meeting, New received a letter from the welfare agency informing her that the agency was increasing her TANF subgrant by $1.1 million, which the letter said was for the purpose of reimbursing payments the nonprofit made to its partners.
Under Freeze, MDHS reinstated its bid process for TANF subgrants. Though New’s nonprofit was under investigation, and had been raided by the auditor’s office months earlier, the welfare agency notified New in December of 2019 that she had won another grant for the coming year. That month, Bryant texted New to ask if she had received the award.
“Yes, we did,” New responded to the former governor. “From all the craziness going on, we had been made to believe we were not getting refunded. But we did. ‘Someone’ was definitely pulling for us behind the scenes. Thank you.”
Bryant responded with a smiley face.
In early 2020, as funding to the nonprofits slowed and Bryant entered the waning days in his final term as governor, Favre and state officials scrambled to come up with the funds to finish the USM volleyball project. Communication obtained by Mississippi Today shows that another state agency that had been receiving grants from the welfare department joined talks of funding the remainder of the construction.
New sent Favre’s funding request to Andrea Mayfield, then-director of the Mississippi Community College Board.
“I am at a loss right now,” New wrote, “and am honestly trying to save coworkers’ jobs, too. Are we closer on a lease, etc. for him. Sorry to have to ask this as I know everybody is doing everything they can. Thank y’all.”
Mayfield proposed having the USM athletic foundation front the $556,000 that the builders needed, and then be reimbursed by various state agencies through monthly rent payments.
“I can work each agency to execute a contract. Once they execute a contract with me, I can quickly execute with MCEC. I am sorry it is taking time. I am at the mercy of each partners schedule. Thoughts?” Mayfield texted USM Athletic Director Jeremy McClain, according to the message she forwarded to New and Favre.
“Let me know,” Favre responded, “and we have a few weeks until it’s finished. If need be Deanna and I will just pay it. If the university will at least Agree on a deal maybe we can get some funding fairly quickly.”
It’s unclear if any more federal grants went to Favre or the athletic foundation after this point.
Bufkin isn’t the only person who has subpoenaed the former governor’s communication related to the volleyball project. Attorney Brad Pigott, who originally represented the state’s welfare department in the civil suit, also subpoenaed the athletic foundation for its communication with Bryant or his wife Deborah Bryant – and was fired from the case as a result.
Pigott previously called the $5 million agreement between the New nonprofit and the athletic foundation “a sham, fraudulent, so-called lease agreement” in which the parties pretended that the purpose of the deal was for the nonprofit to provide services at the facilities, “all of which was a lie,” Pigott said.
Pigott said he believed his firing was political. Reeves and his current welfare agency director have waffled on their reason for terminating Pigott.
The state’s civil case, which seeks to recoup $24 million from 38 people or organizations, appears to have slowed since Pigott’s firing. The athletic foundation is not named as defendant and the volleyball stadium is not discussed once in the complaint. The state canceled and has not rescheduled several depositions that were supposed to take place this month — including one with Favre.
“People are going to go to jail over this, at least the state should be willing to find out the truth of what happened,” Pigott told Mississippi Today after his firing in July.
It’s unclear how the athletic foundation has responded, if at all, to either Bufkin or the state’s subpoena, as no related filings appear in the case file. Objections to subpoenas, such as Bryant’s, are not entered into court. If a subpoenaed entity produces documents as requested, those documents could also go directly to the requesting parties and would not appear in the public court file.
The FBI is still investigating the welfare scandal, but officials haven’t publicly indicated which figures they might be pursuing. President Joe Biden recently nominated Todd Gee to serve as U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi, a position that has been vacant for nearly two years. Gee, a Vicksburg native, will inherit the welfare investigation in his new job after serving as the deputy chief of the Public Integrity Section of the U.S. Department of Justice since 2018.
Gee previously served as lead counsel for the House Homeland Security Committee under chair U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson, who in July wrote a letter to U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland asking the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate Bryant’s role in the welfare scheme.
Shad White, the state auditor who originally investigated the case, was appointed by and formerly served as a campaign manager for Bryant. Shortly after his office arrested New, Davis and four others for their alleged roles in the scheme, White publicly called Bryant the whistleblower in the case.
Asked on Monday how he would characterize Bryant’s role in the scandal now, White said, “I wouldn’t because we don’t know everything that’s going to come out ultimately.”
“I would just let the public decide how they interpret his actions over the course of that entire thing,” White said. “You know, really, if you think back about the corpus of events here that happened, a lot of it has been put out in the news. And so I think anybody who’s reading the newspaper can look at that and say, ‘OK, people at DHS did this right, and they did this wrong. People in the governor’s office did this right, and they did that wrong.’ And they can decide.”
“That’s not for me to decide what somebody’s legacy is,” White added.
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The Environmental Protection Agency has sent a team from its Office of Inspector General to Jackson to investigate the city’s water management, NBC News reported Friday.
Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba said on Monday he had few details on what the federal agency was looking into.
“I don’t have a great deal of details on it,” Lumumba said at a press briefing. “I’ve had city employees that have called and said someone asked them some questions.
“I just shared with them to cooperate. That’s all I know. I don’t know the scope, I don’t know the timeline that they’re looking at.”
The EPA’s OIG is an independent team that conducts audits and investigations, looking to “prevent and detect fraud, waste, abuse, mismanagement and misconduct.” The office is funded separately from the rest of the EPA.
An agency spokesperson told NBC News the probe would entail a “multidisciplinary” review of recent issues with the capital city’s water system.
Last week, EPA Administrator Michael Regan spoke to Mississippi politicians about the availability of federal funds that could assist Jackson. Regan did not mention his agency’s investigation.
While it’s unclear who or what specifically is being investigated, the NBC report said that the probe “will start with conversations with local, state and federal players who have a role in overseeing the public resources dedicated to ensuring residents have clean water.”
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