A federal judge on Tuesday imposed a 33-month prison stay for Dortha Harper, the 14th person to be sentenced for participating in a scheme to obtain millions of dollars' worth of U.S. Department of Agriculture funds intended to feed children in low-income areas throughout the Eastern District of Arkansas.
Harper, 52, of England pleaded guilty March 24, the Friday before she was expected to go to trial on wire-fraud conspiracy charges alongside Jacqueline Mills of Helena-West Helena and Anthony Waits, also of England. The two women are among more than a dozen people who have admitted or were convicted of agreeing to falsely claim they provided meals for children in order to be reimbursed by the government.
Two former employees of the state Department of Human Services, which administered USDA feeding programs in Arkansas, eventually admitted they falsely approved most of the other co-conspirators as "sponsors" in return for kickbacks from the government reimbursements that were directly deposited into the sponsors' bank accounts in response to exaggerated or false claims.
Waits is the only defendant who was never signed up as a sponsor and never received direct-deposited payments into a bank account, but jurors agreed that he participated in the conspiracy by recruiting other people as sponsors and receiving cash kickbacks from them. Largely because of his criminal history, he has received the longest sentence so far -- 14½ years.
Altogether, 16 people have been found guilty of participating in the various branches of the scheme, which prosecutors say remains under investigation but has so far resulted in the discovery of more than $13 million in fraud. Two of the 16 have yet to be sentenced.
Prosecutions have been carried out through a series of indictments that began in December 2014 with the arrest of Mills, 42, and the two former state employees, Tonique Hatton of North Little Rock and Gladys Elise King, who was also known by the name Gladys Elise Waits because she was once married to Anthony Waits. Mills, the most prolific sponsor who claimed to operate 34 food sites, was sentenced last month to 12½ years in prison. Both Hatton and King, who testified against Mills, are serving nine-year sentences.
Prosecutors say Harper's role as a sponsor involved the theft of more than $1.3 million -- the amount that U.S. District Judge James Moody Jr. ordered her Tuesday to pay in restitution to the USDA, jointly and severally with Anthony Waits and Gladys King.
Harper claimed to be a feeding program sponsor between June 2013 and May 2014 through an organization called Kingdom Land Youth Outreach Ministries. Prosecutors said Harper met Anthony Waits before June 2013, when he was married to King, and agreed to pay him kickbacks in exchange for his wife's assistance.
While Harper was in the program, prosecutors said, about 15 inflated claims were submitted through King that resulted in Harper's program receiving just more than $1.3 million in federal funds.
At Tuesday's sentencing hearing, Harper sat beside defense attorney Dana Reece of Little Rock, who told the judge that Harper has numerous health problems and receives Social Security disability payments. Reece took issue with a U.S. probation officer's determination of Harper's net worth, and the probation officer testified that he used public records to find the information because Harper never supplied the office with financial information as requested. Moody eventually adjusted the woman's net worth slightly to $221,250, after deciding that a metal building in Altheimer valued at $23,100, where she once operated a restaurant, should count as her property.
Because of the amount of money involved, Harper faced 30 to 37 months in federal prison. Reece argued that Harper has below-average intellectual functioning and has been diagnosed with major depressive disorder, making her "vulnerable" to being in prison. Harper also told the judge, "I ask that you give me probation. I believe I won't make it if you take me away, and my husband wouldn't make it. He's sick now."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jana Harris noted that testing by government mental-health experts determined that Harper's low intellectual functioning is most likely a symptom of her depression, and that her claims of intellectual deficits were inconsistent with her education and her work history, leading the experts to believe she was "malingering," or faking.
Harris, who has prosecuted all the related food-fraud cases, presented the judge with a chart of all other sentences handed down so far and argued that a sentence within the guideline range would be fair for Harper, when considering the amount of money involved and the sentences of co-conspirators.
Moody ordered Harper to serve 33 months, or just less than three years, in prison and to pay $1,300,702.29 in restitution, in conjunction with Mills and Waits. He ordered her to undergo mental-health counseling during her incarceration and to serve three years' probation.
In concluding the hearing, he asked, as he does routinely, if she believed the sentence was contrary to her plea agreement.
Harper could be heard whispering to Reece, asking her to define the word "contrary." Then she told the judge that she believed the sentence violated her plea agreement because, "I don't know what I did wrong."
Metro on 01/10/2018