A string of witnesses from small Arkansas towns took turns on the witness stand Tuesday in a Little Rock federal courtroom to rebut claims that Jacqueline Mills of Helena-West Helena had fed hundreds of underprivileged children in the towns in after-school or summer feeding programs.
DeValls Bluff Mayor Ken Anderson's eyebrows shot up when Assistant U.S. Attorney Jana Harris asked if it was possible that 244 children had been fed at an old school building on one day in November 2011, as Mills had claimed while seeking federal reimbursement for providing the meals.
"Ma'am, we only have 235 homes in our town," he said. "There's no way."
Is the town big enough that he might just not have been aware of it? Harris asked.
"It's only 1 square mile," Anderson replied. "Yes, I would know."
Anderson recalled that Mills had dropped into City Hall one day and asked for him, saying she wanted to talk about starting a feeding program in the town of 631 -- or, as Anderson pointed out, 731 if you're looking at a population sign greeting those who approach from Memphis.
"I got off the lawnmower and went in and talked to her," he said, recalling that she left her business card and said she'd be back after he thought over her proposal that he and his wife run the program for her from a school building that had been closed in 2007 when the school was consolidated with Hazen. But the Andersons declined.
Similarly, Ronnie Conley, former mayor of Cotton Plant, remembered Mills approaching him in 2011 or 2012 about starting up a feeding program, but he told her he would need approval from the City Council, and, "it never came to fruition."
Both towns are included on a list of 34 feeding sites that Mills told the state Department of Human Services that she operated from 2011 through 2014, when she submitted reimbursement claims that the department administered for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which funded the programs.
Mills, 41, is on trial in the courtroom of U.S. District Judge James Moody Jr. on accusations that she defrauded the USDA of $2.7 million through exaggerated or fabricated claims. She is charged with wire-fraud conspiracy, 25 counts of wire fraud, 10 counts of bribery and three counts of money laundering. Also charged with wire-fraud conspiracy is Anthony Leon Waits, 38, of England, who prosecutors say arranged for several friends and relatives to file false feeding program claims and kick back $1.6 million to him.
Prosecutors say both were aided by two state employees who have pleaded guilty to conspiring with Mills to enrich several people at the expense of the programs.
Mills, who is represented by attorneys Bill James and John Landis, contends that she believed the feeding sites were operated legitimately and that all the claims she submitted were based on information she received from individual site operators. Waits, who is represented by attorney Willard Proctor Jr., contends he is being falsely accused by people who were enticed to lie to impress the government in hopes of receiving leniency at sentencing.
Otha Westbrook of Marianna is among the witnesses who testified Tuesday that he worked for Mills from 2011 through 2014 to operate a feeding program out of a building rented from the city, where he was an alderman.
He and a friend, David Barnes, testified that they used vans to pick up kids after school, gave them snacks, then took them to the park to play while a hot meal was being prepared by Karen Miller, who said she cooked "big meals" like chicken, string beans and mashed potatoes Mondays through Thursdays, followed by hot dogs on Fridays. But both she and the two men said they fed 35 to 40 kids each weekday -- never serving 281 kids in a single day, as reported on a claim sheet.
Bruce Gibson, who owned Gibson Oil in Osceola, testified that in 2013, he rented a building across the highway from his gas station to Mills for $800 a month so she could start an after-school program, but, "I never seen anybody in that building. I never seen the building open," despite reimbursement claims Mills filed for the site.
Terri McCann, a former elementary school principal in Harrisburg, testified that only one feeding program has operated at the school for several years, but it isn't operated by Mills, whom she has never met. Mills submitted reimbursement forms claiming to feed 353 children a day at the school, prosecutors said.
Jurors also heard from Walter Barrington, a senior DHS auditor who testified that Mills submitted reimbursement claims seeking $391,475.78 for meals she provided in June 2013, and $419,284.39 for meals she said she provided in July 2013, but records she provided to support those claims, at his insistence, didn't match the claims. He said receipts showed that 32,575 fewer cartons of milk had been purchased for the month of July than reported on the claim form. Similarly, he said, the receipts came up 32,888 cartons short for August 2013.
Among the receipts Mills gave him to justify the purchases was one from Ben E. Keith, a food distributor in North Little Rock. Although invoice and customer numbers on the receipts had been blacked out, and inconsistent typefaces had been used, indicating the receipts had been altered, credit manager Anita Ott testified that she was able to track the origin of the altered delivery invoices using route and stop information. Focusing on one receipt, she said the load of food had been delivered to another customer in Pine Bluff.
Barrington testified about numerous other irregularities he found in receipts Mills provided. He said the money dispersed by DHS to Mills wasn't based on individual receipts but on the number of meals she reported she provided, which was divided by a formula set by Congress.
Metro on 03/29/2017