Shad White Unveils Mississippi Swindle Brett Favre And The Welfare Scandal That Shocked America

Shad how are you doing this morning I'm good thank you for having me AR I appreciate it well I'm excited to talk with you and the reason why is because I still believe there are lot of people out here in the real world that just don't understand we because this story just continues to grow inside my heart and I'm glad that you released it because I have a better understanding and a better grip of what's going on here well thank you for that and that was that was really the purpose of the book is to tell people the full story of what happened with this large public fraud scheme in Mississippi and then what we can do to prevent it hopefully in other places why has it fallen out of the media because I mean this stuff should still be front page news I think one reason is that uh the case at this point is now four years old W and uh you know the arrest that we made initially to put a stop to the flow of welfare funds happened back in February of 20120 then we released an audit a few months later and of course right around that time that's when there was you know the co break yeah I think it it got lost in the wash there for that period um it made our work difficult during that time because we we had to continue to do our jobs and continue to investigate and do audit work even in the midst of the pandemic the beginning part of the pandemic um but to me that is that is all the more reason to tell the story of what happened here and tell how vulnerable these programs that are designed to benefit poor folks actually are to for all we see this happen over and over in different states Oklahoma Minnesota New York Mississippi so I I hope that folks will read the book take it seriously and and ask hard questions about the programs in their state that are designed to help poor people see I'm so glad that you brought that up that it happens in other states because I get worried about things like this because the NFL has always been so close to the community's money that and what you're doing is you're opening up our eyes and our hearts to something that that has been taking place around the country yeah you know I'll give you another example of a program designed to benefit poor folks that that was stolen from so in Minnesota there was a program it was a federal Grant designed to feed needy children and federal prosecutors have said that they believe that about $250 million so quarter billion dollars of money flowing through that program got stolen um that that is that is a tragic pattern that we see repeat itself over over and over in multiple States programs designed to help needy people get stolen from and and the reasons I think are are one we end up giving a lot of money from these Federal programs to nonprofits and and we hope that they will use the money to benefit poor folks unfortunately uh the government doesn't do a great job of monitoring those nonprofits to see that they actually deliver on their end of the bargain and then two the programs are designed to help poor people and sometimes if if a needy person sees something that doesn't make sense or sees something that suggests that there's something Shady going on with the program they may not know who to report it to so that's that's the kind of stuff that makes it easy for uh for unfortunately for folks to to steal money from these kinds of programs easy to steal the money but this journey to make this public and to keep you know true to it than to write the book this has been one hell of a a tough Journey for you I mean you were only 11 months in into your career and oh boy look what I've got right now in my hands that's exactly right and and you know even after we investigated it after we turned it over to prosecutors after the prosecutors filed charges against the first six individuals we went and arrested those individuals there was still a ton of public pressure on me uh because some of the people that we arrested after they got charged were well-known individuals here in Mississippi so I I'll tell you this quick story uh the the Sunday after we arrested the first six individuals I was at church with my family and and the church service ended and you know the the organ is playing and you're packing up everything I had uh my wife and I had our oldest daughter at the time we now have three kids but we just had our oldest at the time and I was packing up her bottle and the stuffed animal and all that kind of stuff and and a woman who I had never seen before in the Pew in front of me turned around and she said you're Shad white the state auditor and I said yes ma'am she said you arrested all those people this week and I said well my office arrested those individuals uh in the in the large welfare Scandal that we uncovered and she said well I know some of those people and and you're wrong and she stormed off and and so I I I had multiple interactions like that after this case broke but the point for me was that regardless of what somebody's reaction is I have a duty my duty is to tell taxpayers the truth truth about what happened to their money regardless of whether it makes a few people mad or whether we have to arrest somebody who's friends with important people or something like that uh and and that's what I have to do and if I'm not willing to do that then I got to go find a new job how did you develop that coat of honor and and coat of you know of basically inner support because I mean when when somebody starts coming after you like they did with their words and with their actions I mean you obviously you were surrounded by you were in church that that's a great place to be you were surrounded by family but I mean but the Community had to surround themselves around you as well in order to protect your soul well I would say that you can't do it alone and and the way the way we were able to get through this as an office was together yeah so I'm surrounded by people in my office the office of the state auditor who are professional competent people who share the same values that I share they want to get to the bottom of how taxpayer money is spent and they're proud of their work because their accomplished professionals their career investigators their attorneys they you know highly decorated CPAs who have gotten their licenses and done great work their support staff everybody all 135 of us in the office of the state auditor we all share this this Mission and this deep commitment to making sure that the public can understand where their money went yeah and so even if there was pressure on me from the outside or mean words at church or whatever it is I always had my family and I always had my my colleagues the folks who uh who would lock arms together that that always stood uh you know together to try to make sure that we were getting this case done and doing in the right way you know I got I got to tell you something here I got I got to compliment you on this and because you you talk about how being the state auditor is the hardest job in the world but you just spoke of the people that make up the auditor and and I just think that is so incredible that you speak of the people and not just oh it's me it's me it's me so that says a lot about you you well you know I in my book it begins and ends with the same sentiment so the first paragraph and the last paragraph and and the sentiment is this what I'm talking about today on the show and what I talk about in the book really is the work that was done by the men and women of the office of the state auditor here in Mississippi not by me I mean I get to pick the division directors I I try to I go to the legislature I try to get them the resources they need uh I I set big picture strategy for the office but at the end of the day they're the ones doing the work they're the ones who had to dig in and solve this case and and I felt like their story needed to be told and uh and one of the reasons their story needed to be told is that they worked hard they told the truth they knew that their reputations were on the line when they did this audit and when they wrote down uh the facts even if the facts would be hard for some people to hear and and so wanted them to have the opportunity to to have their story told to the public so that people would understand these are some folks who showed some courage who are highly competent and who did a good job here receiving that phone call that original one from the governor was it one of those where your heart just sunk and you're going uh oh this he's he's not joking because this is coming from the government desk yes and I'll say this I I get a lot of those phone calls in my life as state auditor whistleblower tips and that that really is what leads to the cases that we have we've recovered more money in the last six years than any other six year period in the history of the auditor's office because people are willing to step up and and bring forward information but that was the first phone call that I had gotten from the governor of the state of Mississippi there was a whistleblower tip and so yeah when you get a call like that you know that it's not a joke uh Governor Bryant previously served as state auditor himself for 11 years so he he knows when he sees something that uh doesn't look right and he saw something that didn't look right and so um yeah it it raised the level of intensity on that call and it forced us to dig in really really quickly and I'm glad we did because seven eight months later uh we had put a stop to a very very large public fraud scheme involving welfare money speaking of the call let's change that to the calling because when you talk about the TF and this money being meant for the poorest of the poor do you not think that you were called to do this by the universe by God you know I think that God guides all of our decisions in life um and and you know I I wake up every morning and pray for a couple of things I pray for wisdom and I pray that whatever whatever I'm doing in my life is reflective of God's will because I think if you if you try to go outside of that it's probably not going to work out so I won't pretend to understand uh the the mind of God and what he has in store for all of us but I do wake up every day trying to reflect that will and and I I think that you know I'm lucky in that I I built a certain set of skills over many many years when I was in law school I just fell in love with criminal law and took everything that I could around criminal law I interned at the US attorney's office in Boston Massachusetts at that time um later on I I became a certified fraud examiner I got my certificate in for accounting I had no idea how I would use those skills one day I just felt like this was something that I needed to do and then when this moment came I had to call on all those skills in order to get this case done and to and to lead a team that that got the case done who is Nancy and why should readers sit there and go oh I've got to take notes on who Nancy is so Nancy new is the head of a nonprofit down here she's an influential Mississippian who was well known across the state she was the one who uh one of the ones who entered into a conspiracy with John Davis who's the head of the state agency that handles welfare money down here so John would would give big grants of welfare money over to Nancy's nonprofit and then Nancy then he would tell Nancy and her team that he would want the money spent in some ways that were that were illegal so for example he asked that um some of the money the welfare money be used to pay for an expensive drug rehabilitation treatment in Malibu for one of John's buddies and so Nancy after a little while she and her son then began spending some of that welfare money at their nonprofit on things that benefited them like cars or or technology that kind of thing and so really a lot of the welfare money that's involved in this case was flowing through Nancy news nonprofit including the the money that ended up uh going to Favre Enterprises for instance which is Brett Favre's business did I I it was one of the strangest ways to basically bump into this guy because I mean Brett Favre coming after you and your family um that that's not how you want your football heroes to come after you and it's it's like how how does that help your heart with the love of the of the game yeah you know I I grew up here in rural south Mississippi I grew up I guess about 40 or so minutes from from the University of Southern Mississippi where Favre played uh every little boy that grows up in rural Mississippi loves football and and most of them grow up in south Mississippi at least watching Brett Favre and many of them idolizing Brett Favre uh so it was a surreal experience for me having to deal with all of this and and frankly not an enjoyable one for for many many years um as you mentioned uh there was a look like somebody who was one of the attorneys for Mr Favre came to my house in the middle of the day once right after my wife had uh one of our kids and was at home just recovering from pregnancy and weird stuff like that that happened all through the course of this case and and so anyway it was uh I would say it was not fun uh but but my job is to is to do the audits lead the team tell the taxpayers what happened to their money even on days when it's not fun that's the job wow did you keep notes because I'm I'm really big into journaling everything I like Paper Trails and when things like this happen I want to be able to go back and say at this time on this particular day this is what unraveled yes I was in question of it now we've got to grow with it I'm I'll be honest I'm not really a journaler but um but I did you know I was writing this book and and the document that I had that eventually uh where I was capturing some of the stories that eventually became the first draft of the book so uh so I guess in that sense yeah I was I was writing these things down and and now the public can read all of it in the book I mean I think it's important because this is a complicated case because there's some stuff like the visit to my house that that nobody knew about at the time I think it's it's important for people to understand what happened down here they can understand who was involved what they did what some of them failed to do some of the people who probably should have stepped up and and helped on this case who didn't do it those are the kinds of things that that needed to come out and understand that you know that's not going to make everybody happy when you tell a story like that but I said it in the first couple of pages of the book you know uh there'll be people who complain about this book those are probably the people who are most embarrassed about what they did or failed to do during the course of this case speaking of those first couple of pages you dedicate this book to your children as well as the state of Mississippi that's a wide open heart there sir yeah you know I I think having kids changes anybody uh I have three kids and um their ages 5 three and one so this is this is the quietest room I've been in in several days right now every every minute is pandemonium at our house but I look at those kids and I think you know what am I do and in my job to make this state better for them you I'm I'm a lifelong Mississippi and I was born and raised here I'm going to die here I I hope that my kids will also want to stay here we'll work here we want to have a family here we'll we'll ultimately raise my grandkids here and so I have to look at myself in the mirror every day and ask am I doing something the things that I'm allowed to do in my position am I doing something to make this state better yep and um that's a big motivator for me but it was also a big motivator for me in writing the book you speak my street dude because I I will do that with employees I'll sit there and I'll say do you realize that what you're doing today is not about you but rather you are serving a community and that Community has got to grow forward I mean you are are you doing motivational tours to speak on behalf of things like this uh no I I'll say this you know my my life's really busy I mean I've um I've got I work as state auditor here it's a it's an incredibly demanding job um I'm also in the Mississippi National Guard so I got back from guard Duty last night actually uh and took off my uniform and and ate dinner and got my kids down and then woke up this morning and and back at it so I don't I don't have a ton of time for that kind of thing um but again you know that's that's one of the reasons why I wanted to write the book is if I don't have if I don't have time to go tour the country and tell people what happened here um I at least want to get the words written down onto the page so that people will have a chance to read it wherever they may be Native American spirituality teaches us that what we do today will affect the next seven generations is money going back into these families because I mean because you've now opened up a path does the money go back in there or has this all been shut down you know we're we're at a really critical um Point here in Mississippi because uh there was a ton of money that didn't go to benefit poor people from 2016 to 2019 and then we put a stop to the theft back in early 2020 so after that you know now the state is suing a bunch of people to try to get that money back that litigation is going to take years but I hope that once it's over there will be a bunch of money that that will be spent in the way that the law requires on folks that are supposed to benefit from this program the other reason this is a critical moment in Mississippi is the the agency that handles welfare funds they they still are sitting on north of $90 million of welfare funds because they it seems they haven't actually figured out a good way to spend it in the wake of the Scandal so yeah we've got a ton of money that that is sitting on the sidelines that needs to get needs to get going to benefit the folks who need it the most yeah because it's got to get to that Seventh Generation dude I mean that because I'm So Into helping people and that that need it and then but if it's being sat on it's like oh my God so where can people go to find out more about what you're doing in your community so that other states can learn from it yes so the the book is available on Amazon Barnes & Noble uh at your local bookstore too and so that tells the story of what we did here um and if folks want to follow the office of the state auditor uh you know you can always follow me on Twitter at Shad white um those are the places where I talk about what we're doing as an auditor's office and and honestly you know wherever you may be you can support those individuals who are your state auditor the the folks who are investigating white collar crime in your state because those are the folks on the front lines who um who who have to put a stop to these kinds of schemes in your local community wow by the way great name I'm I'm I'm shocked that a radio disc jockey has not stolen your name because Shad white would be a cool name to use as a dis jockey thank you for that I I I come by it honest we we'll thank my mom for that please come back to the show anytime in the future the door is always going to be open for you thank you my friend it's honor to be here well you be brilliant today okay Shan thank you sir