After a federal judge threw out his defamation lawsuit against ESPN’s Shannon Sharpe in October 2023, disgraced Hall of Fame quarterback Brett Favre is set to request a federal appeals court to reinstate the lawsuit on July 9. The lawsuit was originally thrown out due to a judge’s determination that Sharpe’s comments on a television broadcast were within the bounds of constitutionally protected free speech.
According to The Associated Press, U.S. District Judge Keith Starrett wrote in his 2023 decision that it was unreasonable to believe that Sharpe’s comments during a segment on Skip and Shannon: Undisputed should be taken literally. “Here, no reasonable person listening to the Broadcast would think that Favre actually went into the homes of poor people and took their money — that he committed the crime of theft/larceny against any particular poor person in Mississippi.”
Favre’s lawyers, meanwhile, argued in a brief that the ruling was a misinterpretation of Sharpe’s comments. “Here, a reasonable listener could and would have interpreted Sharpe’s repeated statements to the effect that Favre ‘stole money’ from ‘the underserved’ as factual assertions about Favre.”
Sharpe’s attorneys argued in their own legal brief that the judge’s ruling was correct, writing that Sharpe’s words were “loose, figurative language between media commentators about a significant public controversy important to the discourse of our nation.”
According to The AP, Favre has paid back the $1.1 million that he originally improperly received from a non-profit organization for work Favre performed on behalf of the organization, but still owes $729,790 due to accrued interest on the payments, according to Mississippi State Auditor Shad White.
During White’s investigation, he uncovered that between 2016 and 2019, the State of Mississippi misallocated over $77 million in funds from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, meant to go to some of the nation’s poorest inhabitants. According to The Mississippi Free Press, part of that misallocation was an incident which involved a scheme initiated by Nancy New, the operator of the Mississippi Community Education Center, the non-profit organization which paid Favre and former Mississippi Department of Human Services Director John Davis to divert $5 million to a volleyball stadium project Favre wanted at the University of Southern Mississippi, his alma mater.
New also diverted millions in funds from the TANF program to a pharmaceutical company Favre maintained an investment into, Prevacus. Unlike Favre, however, the founder of Prevacus, Jake VanLandingham, Davis, and New are all facing criminal charges related to their actions. According to The Free Press, the State of Mississippi is still trying to recover funds from Favre, which are related to both Prevacus and the University of Southern Mississippi’s volleyball project, through a civil lawsuit that is targeting dozens of organizations and individuals that the MDHS believes took the misused TANF funds.
According to the civil lawsuit, “Favre understood that the TANF Funds that MCEC paid to the Foundation were “grant funds” that were paid on his behalf. Favre knew that John Davis was providing grant funds from MDHS to MCEC for construction of the volleyball facility, and he knew that MDHS is Mississippi’s “welfare agency.” Favre discussed the source of the funding — MDHS — with Jon Gilbert. And Favre texted Jake VanLandingham regarding Nancy New: “She has strong connections and gave me five million for the Vball facility via grant money.”
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