In a case that highlights vulnerability in systems meant to aid the disadvantaged, a St. Louis nonprofit executive has confessed to a fraud that siphoned more than $2 million from a fund designated for feeding low-income children in Missouri. Cymone McClellan, the 32-year-old at the helm of Sister of Lavender Rose (S.O.L.R.), entered a guilty plea to one count of wire fraud conspiracy in U.S. District Court this week, as reported by the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Missouri.
Between January 2019 and June 2022 – a time that spanned the crippling fiscal realities of a pandemic – McClellan, alongside her second-in-command, Terra Davis, were charged after they submitted false and fraudulent claims for meal reimbursements totaling $2.3 million. According to their plea agreements, the claims were made to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) for 860,876 meals that S.O.L.R. never actually provided. Even as the fabric of society seemed to fray under the strain of a public health crisis, McClellan secured enough food and milk for fewer than a quarter of those meals.
The plea outlined how McClellan falsified sign-in sheets to DHSS, claiming attendance records for non-existent meal recipients. It was alleged by the authorities that she provided DHSS with management plans asserting that the state's meal reimbursement funds were used solely for feeding low-income children, and that no meal money was excessively funnelled into purchases over $5,000. Despite these assurances, the plea acknowledged McClellan's use $60,000 of those funds for the down payment on a house in Collinsville, Illinois, among other personal expenses.
The consequences of this scheme were not just theoretical dollars lost; real meals vanished from the hands of children in need. McClellan's spending spree, driven by resources meant to fill stomachs, extended to the acquisition of nearly $135,000 worth of vehicles, including a 2021 Chevrolet Traverse and a 2018 Lexus RX SUV, as per the press release from the U.S. Attorney's Office. As part of her plea agreement, she will forfeit these vehicles and the properties bought with the embezzled funds.
McClellan is scheduled for sentencing on August 26, where it is anticipated she will face orders to repay the misappropriated funds. Her accomplice, Davis, who previously pleaded guilty to the same charges, is set to receive her sentence on June 5. The FBI, along with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of Inspector General, conducted the investigation, as U.S. Attorney Derek Wiseman leads the prosecution.
