[email protected] MORGANTOWN – The Dunbar School Foundation STOP program – a COVID-19 program created to serve the African-American population in Marion and surrounding counties and funded through federal COVID funds channeled through the former Department of Health and Human Resources – is under investigation by the U.S.
Department of Justice. The foundation and former DSF STOP CEO Romelia Hodges have been ordered to provide an array of documents to the DOJ by U.S.
Magistrate Judge Michael Aloi. Hodges and STOP were both served the enforcement order at Hodges’ home address in Fairmont. The DOJ’s Civil Investigative Demand for information regards a False Claims Act investigation alleging Hodges and DSF STOP “submitted false claims, either directly or indirectly, to the U.
S. government.” The Dominion Post began investigating DSF STOP in early 2023 and produced a series of stories that May and June.
The former foundation president alerted The Dominion Post to concerns it had about the program operating under its auspices. At the same time, the DHHR – now the Department of Health – was also investigating. The allegations, detailed in our series of stories, covered such things as nepotism (Hodges’ husband and two children of DSF STOP’s co-founder were on the payroll), excessive executive salaries and bonuses, luxury vehicle rentals, potentially improper ATM withdrawals and potentially improper spending on travel and food.
The program operated on two st.
