Attorney General Kris Mayes announced that a state grand jury indicted two people for allegedly defrauding Arizona’s school voucher program out of more than $100,000.
The grand jury indicted Johnny Lee Bowers and Ashley Meredith Hewitt on 60 felony counts, including fraud, forgery and conspiracy, after the pair allegedly used the ill-gotten money to pay for their living expenses in Colorado.
According to the indictment, Bowers and Hewitt allegedly used fake birth certificates and other fraudulent documents to submit applications to the voucher program, also called Empowerment Scholarship Accounts, for 50 children, including 43 that did not exist.
“They applied as parents under their own names as well as under the names of made-up ‘ghost’ parents,” according to the Attorney General’s Office.
The indictment accuses Bowers and Hewitt of defrauding the program of $110,258.28.
A spokesman for Mayes said the Arizona Department of Education, which administers the voucher program, referred the matter to the Attorney General’s office for investigation.
“As a former Arizona attorney general, I am determined as superintendent to eliminate any fraud within the ESA program,” state Superintendent Tom Horne said in a statement. “Upon taking office, I hired an auditor who had been in the Auditor General’s Office for 15 years, and who is now in charge of the ESA program as well as an investigator. Those two positions had not existed under my predecessor. I am pleased that prosecutions are following in the cases we sent to The Attorney General’s office.”
The new indictment comes 10 months after a state grand jury indicted three former Department of Education employees for allegedly stealing $600,000 from the voucher program.
