Bryant woman guilty of child-meal fraud

Her plea 3rd in plot to con USDA

A Bryant woman admitted Thursday that she defrauded the U.S. Department of Agriculture of more than $500,000 through a program for at-risk school children.

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Francine Leon, 42, of Bryant pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud in U.S. District Court, according to a news release from the office of Chris Thyer, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas.

Leon is the third person in recent months to plead guilty to charges related to fraud in USDA programs that feed low-income children.

The program Leon admitted to defrauding, the Child and Adult Care Feeding Program, aims to feed children in low-income areas at after-school programs during the school year.

People who want to participate in the Child and Adult Care Feeding Program as sponsors submit an application to the Department of Human Services, which administers the federal funds for the program. Once approved, they can provide meals to underprivileged children and be reimbursed based on the number of eligible meals they serve.

In front of U.S. District Judge James Moody Jr. on Thursday, Leon admitted operating a feeding program through an organization called Brighter Kids, Brighter Futures in Cotton Plant, Wheatley, Poplar Grove, Morrilton, Brinkley and Helena-West Helena, the news release said.

She said two former Department of Human Services employees recruited her to be a sponsor, according to Thyer's office. One of them, Tonique Hatton, also has been indicted, the release stated.

The employees completed all of Leon's paperwork to ensure she received the maximum amount of money possible for each site, overstating the number of children who were fed, Thyer's office said.

In total, Leon received $1,003,630, $534,710 of which she withdrew in cash. She paid almost $200,000 to the department employees who helped her, Thyer's office said.

Moody will sentence Leon at a later date. She faces up to 20 years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three years of supervised release.

Several people were previously indicted in the feeding-program fraud case, in which prosecutors estimate more than $10 million has been stolen.

Three people were originally named in an 88-count indictment accusing them of conspiring over a period of years to defraud the Child and Adult Care Feeding Program and the Summer Feeding Service Program, another child-nutrition program funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and administered by the state Department of Human Services.

Hatton, Gladys Waits and Jacqueline Mills were indicted in December 2014, and Anthony Waits and Dortha M. Harper, both of England, were added to a superseding indictment returned Nov. 4 by a federal grand jury in the Eastern District of Arkansas. Hatton is from North Little Rock, and Mills is from Helena-West Helena.

Another defendant, Kattie L. Jordan of Dermott, was added to the indictment in April. She has since pleaded guilty to a charge of wire-fraud conspiracy.

After the original indictment was handed up, four other people were charged in additional indictments alleging feeding-program fraud: Reuben Nims of Little Rock; Michael Lee of Little Rock; Anthony Waits' nephew, Christopher Nichols of North Little Rock; and Maria Carmen Nelson, who worked as a security officer at the federal administration building in Little Rock until her arrest in September.

Nichols pleaded guilty last month to a charge of conspiring to commit wire fraud.

Thyer's office said Thursday that the investigation is ongoing and requested that anyone aware of fraudulent activity regarding the feeding programs email information to [email protected].

Information for this article was contributed by Linda Satter of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

Metro on 02/26/2016

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