The Three Million Dollar Ribbon

Overview

Two conmen used lies and falsified documents to convince the State of Tennessee to give them a $3,000,000 economic development grant to create 1,000 jobs by purchasing and rehabilitating a vacant factory in rural Tennessee. Instead, they spent most of the money on an extravagant lifestyle and invested over $1M in a scheme to defraud the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) out of over $30,000,000 pursuant to a contract to provide the tarps for areas such as Puerto Rico, affected by hurricanes. This session provides a detailed case study of how the investigators accumulated, organized and analyzed hundreds of documents, identified the falsifications and misrepresentations, conducted multiple interviews and ultimately convicted the conmen. This case study provides multiple takeaways for detecting and investigating grant fraud, which is especially relevant in light of the numerous federal stimulus programs in recent years.