Biotech company’s CEO pleads guilty in Mississippi welfare fraud case

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The chief executive officer of a biotech company with ties to the largest public corruption case in Mississippi history pleaded guilty Wednesday to one count of wire fraud for improperly using welfare funds intended to develop a concussion drug.

Jacob VanLandingham entered the plea at a hearing in Jackson before U.S. District Judge Carlton W. Reeves, according to court records. A sentencing date was not immediately set. Possible penalties include up to 20 years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

A lawsuit filed by the state Department of Human Services alleges that $2.1 million of welfare money paid for stock in VanLandingham’s Florida-based companies, Prevacus and PreSolMD, for Nancy New and her son, Zachary New, who ran nonprofit groups that received welfare money from Human Services.

Prosecutors said the Mississippi Community Education Center, which was run by the News, provided about $1.9 million, including federal money from the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families program, to Prevacus. The money was purportedly for the development of a pharmaceutical concussion treatment. But, prosecutors said in a bill of information that VanLandingham misused “a substantial amount of these funds for his personal benefit, including, but not limited to, gambling and paying off personal debts,” according to the bill.

Former NFL star Brett Favre is named in the Human Services lawsuit as the “largest individual outside investor” of Prevacus. Favre, who has not been charged with wrongdoing, has said he put $1 million of his own money into VanLandingham’s companies, which were developing a nasal spray to treat concussions and a cream to prevent or limit them.

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Former Mississippi Department of Human Services director John Davis and others have pleaded guilty to misspending money from the TANF program.

Nancy New and Zachary New previously pleaded guilty to state charges of misusing welfare money, including on lavish gifts such as first-class airfare for Davis. Nancy New, Zachary New and Davis all agreed to testify against others.

Davis was appointed by former Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant to lead Human Services. He pleaded guilty to state and federal felony charges in a conspiracy to misspend tens of millions of dollars from the TANF program.