Glynn Board Member Swept Up in Jail-Based Fraud

Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2024

Good morning! We begin this week with federal charges against a Glynn County school board member. We then run down some Coastal Georgia efforts to shape the agenda for the upcoming General Assembly session and conclude with a look at one lawmaker’s plans to rein in so-called crisis pregnancy centers. Questions, comments, or story ideas? You can reach me at craig.thecurrent@gmail.com

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NEWS: COURTS

Glynn County school board member indicted on federal charges

A man being held in Glynn County’s detention center has overseen a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme from his jail cell, aided by a school board member and seven others, federal prosecutors allege in a recently filed indictment.

Dante Frederick (aka Asaad Amir Husuan) is accused of promising legal assistance, physical protection and investment opportunities to his fellow detainees in exchange for cash and goods from the detainees’ families and friends, writes The Current’s Glynn County reporter Jabari Gibbs.

Frederick’s co-conspirators worked as “money mules,” laundering the money and goods he coerced from the inmates’ friends and families, sometimes through physical threats, through cash-based businesses, such as a car rental company operating under the name “One Way Auto,” according to an indictment unsealed last month by the U.S. District Attorney in Delaware.

Glynn County authorities assisted in the FBI investigation that led to last month’s indictment. But it remains unclear how Frederick was able to operate the fraud scheme from the Glynn County Detention Center without detection from at least September 2021.

Frederick, who is about 41 years old, was indicted on April 12, and he is currently in federal custody in Delaware. The indictment, however, was only unsealed on Nov 14. He has been charged with criminal offenses in Glynn at least 20 times, records from the Georgia Department of Corrections indicate.

Audrey Gibbons, the Glynn County school board member (District 5) named in the indictment, denied any wrongdoing. She told Gibbs in an interview that she first learned of the allegations against her on Nov. 25.

Gibbons acknowledged sharing three bank accounts with another person named in the indictment, Penny Hunter, but said she was only retained by Hunter to do bookkeeping for One Way Auto Rentals. She denied knowing Frederick.

Arraignment is scheduled for Dec. 11.

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NEWS: GEORGIA LEGISLATURE

So many breakfasts, priorities

The Georgia state legislature convenes for a new session next month and, already, interest groups of all shapes and sizes are pushing their agendas. Here’s far from complete list:

• The Savannah-Chatham County school board is hosting local senators and representatives for a legislative priorities breakfast on Thursday.
• The Savannah Area Chamber of Commerce is holding its “Biscuits & Bills legislative breakfast” this morning to brief Chatham County legislative delegation members and present its legislative agenda for 2025.
• The Brunswick-Golden Isles Chamber of Commerce hosts its annual “grits & issues meeting” meeting on Friday, Dec. 13, at the Jekyll Island Convention Center. State Sen. Mike Hodges (R-Brunswick), and state Reps. Homer “Buddy” DeLoach (R-Townsend), Rick Townsend (R-Brunswick) and Steven Sainz (R-St. Marys), will be joined by U.S. Rep. Earl “Buddy” Carter to discuss their priorities for the upcoming legislative sessions in Washington and Atlanta. Click here for registration information.
• Government agencies are pushing their legislative agendas, too. The Georgia Department of Education has issued its list of priorities.

And in time for Gov. Brian Kemp’s state-of-the-state speech at the start of the session, where school choice is bound to be a topic, The Georgia Education Savings Authority has launched a new website for the Georgia Promise Scholarship program.

Also, the Governor’s Office of Student achievement has pushed out its list of schools whose students are eligible to apply for $6,500 private school voucher. Chatham has 18 schools on the list; Liberty, 6; Bulloch, 3; Wayne, 3; and Bryan, 1.

Of course, what matters more than legislative priorities is the budget, which represents the actual value politicians and interest groups place on those stated priorities. The governor will present his. Groups such as the Georgia Budget & Policy Institute offer theirs.

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NEWS: REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS

Regulating ‘crisis pregnancy centers’

Savannah-area state Rep. Anne Allen Westbrook has announced that she plans to introduce legislation in upcoming session of the General Assembly to regulate state funding for so-called crisis pregnancy centers.

“We want to make sure first and foremost that the public knows what these centers do and what they don’t do, and just sort of look at the issue of whether they should be receiving state funding,” Westbrook told The Current’s Liberty County reporter, Robin Kemp.

The centers provide pregnancy tests and information. In some instances, they also offer limited medical services such as ultrasounds. Georgia has 89 such centers, including six in Savannah, according to data compiled by researchers at the University of Georgia’s College of Public Health.

But the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists says CPCs — also known as  “pregnancy resource centers,” “pregnancy care clinics,” and “women’s health centers” — falsely represent themselves as “legitimate reproductive health care clinics providing care for pregnant people but actually aim to dissuade people from accessing certain types of reproductive health care, including abortion care and even contraceptive options.”

The ACOC and other critics say the primary aim of CPCs in the U.S. to keep women from having an abortion. Most are affiliated with national religious organizations who oppose abortion and have policies against promoting and providing contraception, says the Crisis Pregnancy Map, a project led by the UGA researchers, Drs. Andrea Swartzendruber and Danielle Lambert.

Government funding for CPCs is “an increasing national trend,” the project’s website adds.

In FY2024, the state’s Department of Public Health disbursed more than $2 million to “direct client service providers” to CPCs in Georgia through the “​​Positive Alternatives for Pregnancy and Parenting Grant Program,” Kemp reports. Westbrook disclosed her plans to introduce CPC-related legislation at a conference in women’s reproductive rights in Hinesville on Nov. 23.

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