Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

14th sentence for food fraud is 33 months

England woman pleaded guilty; theft put at $1.3M

- LINDA SATTER

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 wirefraud 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.”

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