Whipped Cream Difficulties

I missed this one until it was in this morning’s Linkswarm, and Mike the Musicologist messaged me about it.

Tennessee state senator Katrina Robinson has been making waves. And not the good kind. She was indicted yesterday Wednesday on 48 counts: 24 counts of wire fraud, and 24 counts of “theft and embezzlement from government programs”.

A criminal complaint filed in U.S. District Court alleges Robinson used federal grant money issued to her for-profit nursing college to buy a vehicle for her daughter, expenses related to her wedding and honeymoon, and legal fees for her divorce. She is also accused of using the grant money to pay off credit cards and student loan payments, purchase beauty products and fund a campaign event.

Some high points:

During a press conference Wednesday evening, neither Robinson nor her attorney Janika White directly denied the accusations outlined in the criminal complaint. Robinson implied her political convictions played a role in the investigation.
“It is believed that if I were not in the position that I’m in, that if I did not champion the voices, the views and the faces that I represent, that I would not be in this moment right now,” she said.

…

White said her client had been cooperating with federal investigators and criticized the statute cited in the criminal complaint, saying it was “broad and overreaching and leads to what no one in this society wants, which is overcriminalization.”

…

White also asked for people to keep Robinson in their thoughts and prayers, adding that during the pandemic, Robinson — who is a nurse — traveled to New York and to Texas to assist in communities that had been hit hard by COVID-19.

Anybody got “bingo” on their card?

The investigation was opened after HHS received an anonymous complaint in December 2016 alleging Robinson used grant money to buy $550 Louis Vuitton handbag. HHS and the FBI jointly investigated the case.
Bank records for The Health Institute obtained by the FBI and HHS allegedly showed Robinson giving herself a $25,400 performance bonus in the 2017 fiscal year, transferring $54,000 into a brokerage account to set up an IRA for herself, and paying herself a base salary of almost $170,000 more than was approved by HHS during the period her business was receiving grant funding.
Among the personal purchases Robinson is accused of making with federal dollars are a 2016 Jeep Renegade, a more than $5,500 wrought-iron front door and expenses and equipment for Celebrity Body Studio, another business owned by Robinson, and a snow cone business operated by her children.
She also allegedly used more than $5,000 in grant funding on a trip to Jamaica and almost $9,000 on tickets to Grizzlies games, other events at FedExForum and a rental space for a concession stand.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 31st, 2020 at 3:14 pm and is filed under Law, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.