JACKSON, Miss. – Retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre says a Mississippi judge improperly blocked his lead attorney from representing him in a state civil lawsuit that seeks to recover misspent welfare money.
Using another of his attorneys, Favre filed an appeal Thursday asking the Mississippi Supreme Court to overturn the ruling that Hinds County Circuit Judge Faye Peterson issued July 11.
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The Mississippi Department of Human Services filed a civil lawsuit in 2022 against Favre and more than three dozen other people, groups and companies. The state auditor has said welfare money that was supposed to help some of the poorest residents in the U.S. was spent instead on projects pushed by wealthy and well-connected people, including a university volleyball arena backed by Favre.
Peterson wrote in her order that one of Favre’s New York-based attorneys, Daniel Koevary, had violated rules for Mississippi civil court procedures by repeatedly demanding hearings “for matters unrelated to and not within the jurisdiction of this Court to resolve.” Peterson also wrote that she deemed the behavior “an attempt to manufacture discord.”
One of Favre's Mississippi-based attorneys, Michael J. Bentley, wrote in the appeal Thursday that Peterson's order causes irreparable harm.
“Neither Koevary nor other non-local attorneys did anything wrong in representing Favre, let alone anything warranting sidelining them and thereby impinging on Favre's right and prejudicing Favre by depriving him of the full services of the attorneys with the greatest institutional knowledge of the matter,” Bentley wrote.
Mississippi Auditor Shad White said in 2020 that Favre, a Pro Football Hall of Fame member who lives in Mississippi, had improperly received $1.1 million in speaking fees from a nonprofit organization that spent welfare money with approval from the Mississippi Department of Human Services. The welfare money was to go toward a volleyball arena at the University of Southern Mississippi. Favre agreed to lead fundraising efforts for the facility at his alma mater, where his daughter started playing on the volleyball team in 2017.
Favre repaid $500,000 to the state in May 2020 and $600,000 in October 2021, White said in a court filing in February that Favre still owes $729,790 because interest caused growth in the original amount he owed.
Favre is not facing any criminal charges. Former Mississippi Department of Human Services director John Davis and others have pleaded guilty to misspending money from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program.
White has said more than $77 million of welfare money was misspent from 2016 to 2019, including $160,000 for drug rehab for a former pro wrestler and thousands of dollars for airfare and hotel stays for Davis, who led the Department of Human Services during those years.