In January 2019, Brett Favre hosted a sales presentation at his Mississippi home to discuss Prevacus, the drug company founded by Jake VanLandingham that, by year’s end, would illegally receive more than $2 million in federal welfare funds.
On Wednesday, VanLandingham was indicted, making him the latest person hit with federal charges for alleged involvement in a scheme that saw more than $90 million in diverted Temporary Assistance for Needy Families funds—federal money earmarked for the poorest residents of Mississippi, the most impoverished state in the U.S.
Favre is now the only person among the six at that meeting who hasn’t been charged criminally—and the window to charge him if there is any evidence is closing due to the statute of limitations.
“The feds are really taking this one down to the wire,” says Matt Tympanick, a veteran criminal defense attorney who has followed the case closely but is not involved in the proceedings.
The federal investigation remains ongoing, and nailing down how much time is left for prosecutors to indict anyone else is a bit fuzzy.
Experts say statutes of limitations exist for good reason. “It’s about protecting the integrity of the judicial system itself by making sure that trials are brought in a quick and expeditious way,” says William J. Bang, a Virginia-based attorney at PJI Law, LLC. “After time passes, you can have evidence that starts to spoil or gets lost. Witnesses’ recollections start to get hazy. It gets harder to find people. I think there is a general sentiment that you don’t want something hanging over a defendant’s head forever, but that’s not really why statute of limitations exists. It’s about ensuring that both sides have a fair chance to gather the evidence that they need.”
John Davis, Nancy New, Zach New, Teddy DiBiase Jr., Jake VanLandingham and Brett Favre attended a Jan. 2, 2019, meeting at Brett Favre’s home in Lamar County, Miss. Since 2020, prosecutors have charged all except Favre in connection with the Mississippi welfare scandal. Photos Families First for Mississippi/ New Learning Resources/Gary Tramontina AP Images
Read original article by clicking here.