The 'Million Dollar Man' Ted DiBiase Owes Millions In Misspent Welfare Money

WWE WWE icon Ted “Million Dollar Man” DiBiase and two of his ex-wrestler sons, along with NFL legends Brett Favre and Marcus Dupree, were among the high-profile individuals cited by the Mississippi state government for misspent welfare funds.

What Happened: Mississippi State Auditor Shad White issued a press statement demanding the return of more than $77 million of Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) funds allocated to nonprofits that wound up being improperly spent.

White noted that bureaucrats who signed off on the allocation, including former Department of Human Services (DHS) Executive Director John Davis, and the nonprofits and their officers that received the funds were served with the request to return the funds.

“Two years ago, my office audited DHS,” said White. “After two years of work, we found tens of millions of dollars in misspending. Those findings have now been confirmed, this month, by an independent forensic audit commissioned by DHS. It’s time for the taxpayers to attempt to recover what we lost.”

What Else Happened: Among the more notable individuals and entities cited by White for failing to fulfill the terms of their contracts were DiBiase’s Heart of David Ministries, which received $722,299 in TANF funds, and two of the former wrestler’s sons: Ted DiBiase Jr., founder of the Ted DiBiase Foundation, who received $3.9 million, and Brett DiBiase, a former deputy administrator for the Mississippi Department of Human Services, who received $225,950.

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Favre Enterprises, a charity co-founded by Favre, which received $828,000, and the Marcus Dupree Foundation, which received $789,534, were also named. White identified the Family Resource Center of North Mississippi, which received $15.5 million after allegedly misspending, and the Mississippi Community Education Center, operating as Families First for Mississippi, which received more than $44 million in government grants from mid-2014 to mid-2018.

What's Next: White’s office issued a demand to Davis for $96.313 million — which includes interest — for his role authorizing over $77 million in illegal TANF spending. Davis left the DHS in July 2019 and was among six people indicted in a public corruption case that is scheduled to go to trial next month.

White’s office noted the demands were civil and not criminal, adding that a civil demand does not imply criminal liability.

“I’m grateful that DHS’s Director Bob Anderson has worked with the Attorney General’s Office to hire an attorney to recover these funds,” White said. “These demands serve as the next step in the recovery process.

“If there is more money that the Attorney General believes has been misspent than what we have identified in these demands, we stand ready to help them investigate if needed,” White added. “More demands are possible.”

Photo: Ted DiBiase, courtesy of Megan Elice Meadows / Flickr Creative Commons.