(AP) – A former Arkansas Department of Human Services
employee has been sentenced to nine years in prison for fraud related to a
program that provides food for low income children.
Court records show 39-year-old Tonique Hatton of North Little Rock was
sentenced Wednesday after pleading guilty in September to conspiring to commit
mail fraud.
Hatton acknowledged that as a DHS employee, she received bribes to approve
feeding sites for the federal program where sponsors claimed to feed hundreds of
children, but actually fed few if any.
In a separate case, 26-year-old Michael Lee of Little Rock pleaded guilty to
wire fraud in a similar scheme in which prosecutors say he claimed to feed as
many as 800 children in Arkadelphia and Little Rock, but fed no more than 30 in
Arkadelphia and none in Little Rock.
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