An eighth person in Arkansas has been charged for her role in stealing money from a federal feeding program, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas Christopher Thyer said Friday.
Maria Carmen Nelson, a 49-year-old employee of a security firm that guards the federal building in Little Rock, was charged with wire fraud, Thyer said in a statement.
A complaint filed Friday before her arrest alleges that as a sponsor of a feeding program through an organization called Securing Our Future she falsified the number of children fed daily through the program. Nelson received more than $575,000 this way, according to the complaint.
The Child and Adult Care Feeding Program, funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, is administered in Arkansas by the state Department of Human Services. The complaint states the DHS employee who approved Nelson’s application to become a sponsor also approved the application of Michael Lee, who was indicted in July, according to the statement.