Southwest
Ex-AZ education department workers used 'ghost students' to launder voucher money
Three former Arizona Department of Education employees were indicted on conspiracy and money laundering charges in what prosecutors say was a scheme to defraud more than $600,000 from an education voucher program that has drawn criticism for its skyrocketing costs and lax regulation by the state.
Prosecutors said Thursday that the three employees approved applications for 17 students -– five of which were fictitious — that admitted them into the voucher program using forged birth certificates and special education evaluations.
Delores Lashay Sweet, Dorrian Lamarr Jones and Jennifer Lopez, who were fired last year from the Department of Education, are accused of using the money for their own benefit, such as luxury purchases. Two of Sweet’s adult children, Jadakah Celeste Johnson and Raymond Lamont Johnson Jr., also were charged with conspiracy and money laundering.
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“They created ghost students with forged birth certificates – children that didn’t exist –- and gave them fake disability diagnoses that would make them eligible for larger funding amounts,” said Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, whose office is examining other suspected abuses of the voucher program.
No attorneys for the former Department of Education employees and Sweet’s two adult children could be found in court records.
Phone messages left late Thursday afternoon for Sweet and Jones, as well as a number listed for both Jadakah and Raymond Johnson, weren’t immediately returned. Efforts to get Lopez’s phone number were unsuccessful.
Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes is seen speaking about the indictment of three former Arizona Department of Education employees on charges they defrauded the state’s education voucher program out of more than $600,000, on Feb. 29, 2024 in Phoenix. (AP Photo/Jacques Billeaud)
The Democratic attorney general said the case shows the voucher program is an easy target for fraud and that the Republican-majority Legislature should take steps to lessen the opportunity for fraud within the voucher program.
Sen. John Kavanagh, a Republican who supports the vouchers, said he doesn’t see the problem as fraud within the Empowerment Scholarships Account program, but rather fraud in the agency that runs it.
“I don’t think that it’s anymore damning of the ESA than when a bank teller steals money from the banking system,” Kavanagh said. “It (the problem) is about the people, not the program.”
Mayes said investigators were tipped off to the alleged fraud not by the education department, which runs the voucher program, but rather a credit union that noticed unusually large cash withdrawals.
In a statement, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne disputed that his office didn’t tell the Attorney General’s Office about the fraud, saying his office had alerted Mayes’ office to concerns about two of the three employees. He also said he has placed more controls on the program and reported other instances of suspected abuse of the voucher program to Mayes’ office.
“Our discovery of the activities of the two former staffers is consistent with my determination to root out potential fraud and abuse,” Horne said.
The voucher program lets parents use public money for private-school tuition and other education costs. It started in 2011 as a small program for disabled children. But it was expanded repeatedly over the next decade until it became available to all students in 2022.
Originally estimated to cost $64 million for the current fiscal year, budget analysts now say it could top $900 million.
The changes in Arizona’s voucher program led to a sharp increase in the number of participants. Before the expansion, nearly 12,000 students — including disabled children, those living on Native American reservations and children in low-performing schools — took part in the program. Now that all students can apply for the vouchers, more than 75,000 students participate.
Critics say the expansion is a drain on the state’s coffers, while backers say the expansion lets parents choose the best school for their children.
About 75% of the students who got vouchers immediately after the program was expanded had no prior record of attending an Arizona public school, according to Department of Education data reported in 2022. That suggests the state subsidies went largely to students whose families already were paying private school tuition.
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The family of Brianna Aguilera, the Texas A&M student who fell to her death from a high-rise apartment in November, is suing two organizations for allegedly overserving alcohol ahead of the 19-year-old’s death.
Attorney Tony Buzbee on Tuesday announced a $1 million wrongful death lawsuit was filed in Travis County against the Austin Blacks Rugby Club and the UT Economics and Business Association.
“It is illegal to serve minors any amount of alcohol in the State of Texas. It is reckless and irresponsible to grossly over-serve a group of minors at a University of Texas football tailgate to the point where those minors lose their physical faculties and ability to control themselves,” the lawsuit states.
Aguilera died when she fell from an Austin high-rise apartment following a Texas A&M vs. University of Texas football tailgate at around 1 a.m. Nov. 29, according to police.
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An image provided by the family of the young Texas A&M student, Brianna Aguilera, found dead in Austin over the weekend. (GoFundMe)
A police investigation later determined Aguilera died by suicide despite her family’s claims that she was killed.
Brianna Aguilera was found dead in an apartment hours after attending a tailgate party. (Facebook/Brie Aguilera)
According to the filing, the alleged “egregious over-serving of minors” led to Aguilera’s death. Witnesses described her behavior over several hours as “shifting from upbeat to disoriented and ultimately grossly intoxicated,” the suit says.
Brianna Aguilera holds a sign congratulating her on her acceptance to Texas A&M. (Instagram/brie.aguilera)
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Buzbee said the lawsuit is also intended to support the ongoing investigation into the events of that night by allowing the firm to seek phone and text records, documents and data and to compel witness testimony.
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The lawsuit requests a jury trial.
Fox News Digital’s Julia Bonavita contributed to this report.
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Nobody handles oil quite like Texas and a fresh supply of Venezuelan crude could soon be headed to the Lone Star State’s coast.
The first barrels of thick, tar-like crude could arrive as soon as next week at ports across Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, where dense clusters of refineries are built and bred to process heavy oil.
The development follows President Donald Trump’s Tuesday evening announcement that Caracas will transfer up to 50 million barrels of oil to the U.S., worth about $2.8 billion at current market prices.
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Venezuelan children swimming near an oil tanker docked at a pier near the refinery of the state oil company PDVSA. (Jesus Vargas/picture alliance/Getty Images)
“The Gulf Coast concentrates most of our refining capacity, and those refineries were built or revamped over the years to process extra-heavy crude similar to what is produced in Venezuela,” explained Jaime Brito, executive director of refining and oil products at OPIS.
“From a market perspective, additional volumes of extra-heavy crude entering the U.S. refining system would be an extraordinarily positive development,” Brito said. “It would allow refiners to operate more efficiently, something they haven’t been able to do for years and could help keep gasoline and diesel prices at better levels because refiners would have access to cheaper crude and more optimal operations.”
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He added that tankers could arrive within five to six days if they leave Venezuelan waters on Thursday.
Because Gulf Coast refineries supply a large share of the nation’s fuel, shifts in how efficiently they operate can ultimately ripple through to prices paid by U.S. consumers.
Texas oil refineries are poised to benefit from additional crude oil supplies. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
The arrival of 15 to 25 oil tankers carrying up to 50 million barrels of crude is only a fraction of what Venezuela could ultimately supply.
With more than 300 billion barrels of proven reserves, it holds the world’s largest oil endowment — eclipsing long-standing energy heavyweights like Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Kuwait.
Despite its vast reserves, U.S. sanctions have effectively blocked most Venezuelan crude from reaching the U.S. Gulf Coast, leaving Chevron — operating under a special authorization — as the sole exporter of limited volumes.
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A Chevron Corp. flag flies on the drilling floor of a Nabors Industries Ltd. drill rig in the Permian Basin near Midland, Texas, on March 1, 2018. (Daniel Acker/Bloomberg/Getty Images)
That disruption has been felt most acutely in Texas, which anchors the nation’s refining hub and hosts several of the country’s largest heavy-crude refineries.
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A renewed flow of Venezuelan barrels could also intensify competition in the heavy-crude market, particularly between Venezuela and Canada, Brito said.
“You’re going to have fierce competition between Canada and Venezuela, which benefits American refiners and gives them more flexibility to potentially lower fuel prices,” he said, adding that he was speaking strictly from an oil-market perspective.
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A security guard was fatally shot outside a Houston restaurant Wednesday evening after a confrontation with another man, authorities said.
The shooting happened around 6:15 p.m. outside Connie’s Seafood Market Restaurant, the Houston Police Department said.
Police told reporters that the security guard, who was working for the restaurant, was standing in the parking lot when a fight broke out between him and another man, FOX26 Houston reported.
Police said the security guard was shot at least once. He was rushed to a hospital where he later died.
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A security guard was fatally shot outside a Houston restaurant Wednesday evening after a confrontation with another man, authorities said. (Houston Police Department)
Authorities did not immediately release the name of the victim.
The suspect was last seen running away from the parking lot after the shooting.
The security guard was working for the restaurant at the time of the shooting. (Google Maps)
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No details about the suspect or the circumstances that led to the altercation have been released as of Thursday morning.
Houston police were reviewing surveillance footage as they search for the shooting suspect. (Mayra Beltran/Houston Chronicle, File)
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Officials said investigators were reviewing surveillance footage and speaking with witnesses to get a description of the suspect.
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