Brett Favre is set to testify Tuesday at a hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee examining welfare reform, the panel confirmed to The Hill, an appearance that comes after the former NFL star faced allegations of using Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) state funds for corporate gains.
Favre was accused of encouraging local officials to use welfare money to build an athletic facility and support the manufacture of a concussion drug. A Mississippi state audit found that some $5 million in TANF resources was reallocated to pay for the construction of a volleyball facility at Favre’s alma mater — the University of Southern Mississippi, where his daughter was then playing volleyball — and that $1.7 million was directed toward a company named Prevacus, which is working to develop the concussion medication and where he is an investor.
The former quarterback also received $1.1 million in speaking fees for speeches he never gave, which his attorneys say he has repaid.
The Mississippi Department of Human Services pursued a civil lawsuit against him and other defendants, citing text messages between Favre and state officials as evidence of his involvement in embezzling funds.
To date, he has not been charged criminally, but some of his alleged co-conspirators have. Prevacus’s founder, Jacob VanLandingham, pleaded guilty to wire fraud in July.
“What is important is that he knew that he had to kind of finagle the purpose of this grant and the purpose of this building in order to satisfy federal regulations. They couldn’t just say it was a volleyball stadium. They were calling it a wellness center,” Anna Wolfe, the reporter who broke the scandal for Mississippi Today, told Wisconsin Public Radio host Kate Archer Kent. “… They said that the building was going to serve underprivileged families by holding rallies and maybe having some office space in the building where people could come get services.”
Favre will likely be asked to speak to his actions at the committee hearing, titled “Reforming Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF): States’ Misuse of Welfare Funds Leaves Poor Families Behind.”
“No one ever told me, and I did not know, that funds designated for welfare recipients were going to the University or me,” Favre said in the statement to Fox News after the story broke. “I tried to help my alma mater USM, a public Mississippi state university, raise funds for a wellness center. My goal was and always will be to improve the athletic facilities at my university.”