The FBI has questioned former NFL quarterback Brett Favre by over funds he was paid by the state of Mississippi to deliver speeches that he never gave, according to officials.
Mississippi paid Favre $1.1 million to deliver speeches in 2017 and 2018 using funds from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. However, the speeches were never given, and he was requested to return the money along with $228,000 in interest. Favre repaid the original amount but not the thousands of dollars of interest accumulated, according to NBC News.
Favre has neither been accused of a crime nor charged over the incident but has since been interviewed by the FBI, said his lawyer Bud Holmes, according to the outlet. Holmes said that the football player did not do anything wrong and was not aware that he was paid with money intended to help the poor.
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In Oct. 2021, Favre wrote a series of social media posts defending himself from accusations from Shad White, the state auditor who was the first person to discover the state’s misspending, according to the outlet. Favre stated that he is doing all that he can to help with the investigation and that White had never offered to meet up with him to discuss the matter.
I am doing all that I can to support this investigation to make things right for the people of Mississippi and I have shared all that I know, which is that I was paid for three years of commercials that I did, and I paid taxes on the money, as I should.
— Brett Favre (@BrettFavre) October 29, 2021
White claims that as much as $70 million in welfare funds had been misspent by the state. John Davis, who was previously the head of the state welfare agency, has pleaded not guilty to state charges of bribery and conspiracy, according to law enforcement officials.
Among the other people given the misspent welfare funds are Ted DiBiase, a retired professional wrestler given $3 million, Marcus Dupree, a former college football star given $370,000, and Paul LaCoste, who received $300,000 to run a fitness boot camp for politicians, according to the outlet. Davis’s nephew, Austin Smith, was also given $400,000 to provide “coding skills,” even though he does not know how to code nor how to teach it, according to White.
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Mississippi is ranked as the poorest in the United States, with the median household income set at $45,792, the lowest out of all the 50 states, based on the 2019 median household income. The state’s poverty rate was also the highest at 19.6%, according to data from Stewart, a title insurance firm.
