Photo courtesy of Metro Creative Connection.
The founder of an organization claiming to provide meals to hungry children was sentenced in court Monday after being found guilty of scamming more than $2.3 million from the Summer Food Service Program, according to U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Texas Leigha Simonton.
The program is run by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and provides funding for organizations to give out free meals to children in low-income areas during the summer months.
Michael Munson, 47, was sentenced to a year and a half in federal prison for the fraud.
According to court documents, Munson admitted to knowingly inflating the number of meals served at various sites by his organization, the Heloise Munson Foundation, between 2008 and 2014. Munson also provided meal counts for sites the foundation did not service.
In total, Munson claimed the Heloise Munson Foundation was responsible for distributing 2.4 million meals to needy children, when in reality, less than 1 million meals were given out and Munson pocketed reimbursements for at least 1.4 million meals, a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
The news release adds that Munson admitted to paying $75,000 for fabricated invoices showing purchases of milk, juice and food from Janus Wholesale Food, Inc. In October 2013, Munson testified under oath at an administrative hearing to the legitimacy of the sales.
Janus Wholesale Food, Inc. is not a real company, according to federal investigators.
The website for the Heloise Munson Foundation has been taken down, but an inactivated Facebook page and several nonprofit tracking websites list a Winnetka Heights home as the organization’s headquarters.
Munson was indicted on the charges in 2018 and pleaded guilty in July 2022. U.S. District Judge Ada Brown completed Munson’s sentencing, and Brown is expected to order restitution later this week the news release said.
