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Cantonment Woman, Her Friend Charged With Defrauding State Of $352K In Daycare Scheme
June 7, 2019
A Cantonment woman and her friend have been charged with defrauding the state out of more than $350,000 in a scheme involving an Escambia County daycare.
Eboni Moorer Singer, age 38 of Cantonment, and Roletta Shelton, age 47 of Pensacola, were charged with racketeering and multiple counts of public assistance fraud. In total, the Florida Department of Financial Services says the two fraudulently accepted $352,622.09 in public assistance funds.
The state says the two women knowingly conspired for Shelton to act as the owner of the business actually owned by Singer and falsified state contracts, bank accounts and other documentation in order to conceal the identity of the true owner.
In June 2011, Singer, doing business as Legendary Pre-School was disqualified by the USDA Food Program for seven years due to submitted false claims to the Department of Health for Child Care Food Program funds. In June 2012, her contract with the Early Learning Coalition (ELC) of Escambia County was terminated due to her USDA disqualification.
Singer then transferred to the business to her husband who renamed the business Legendary Kids Pre-School. His contract with the ELC was terminated in 2014 and his eligibility was revoked for five years.
Investigators said that in response to being in eligible to received state funds for their daycare, Singer and her husband recruited Shelton to act as owner of the business for them. Shelton renamed the business Legendary Christian Pre-School. Shelton then signed numerous agreements with the ELC to provide subsidized Voluntary Pre-K and childcare services.
According to investigators, Singer leased the school’s location on West Fairfield Drive, and Singer and her husband owned both of the preschool’s vans. In addition, the business bank account was joint between Shelton and Singer, and Singer made transfers to and from her personal bank account.
Eboni Singer was released from the Escambia County Jail on an $85,000 bond, and Shelton was released from jail on a $40,000 bond.
Comments
27 Responses to “Cantonment Woman, Her Friend Charged With Defrauding State Of $352K In Daycare Scheme”
I truly hope Miss Shelton is not held responsible for this. It seems to me that she was bamboozled into this situation. Just my thoughts
Their actions were deliberate and against the law..Don’t make them pay the state back. the state don’t need any more money to throw away on get rich schemes…. Make them pay back the parents they robbed from…
It seems that Singer had more wrong doing here than anybody she reminds me of an Aunt of mines money hungry scheming in every way possible. Hope she gets what she deserves she has really been asking for it
Sad that a lot of people only be involved in these innocent babies lives for the money the people today saddens me give them what they deserve sorry not sorry
PS., I actually see folks advocating for more govt in our lives. Are you people nuts asking for more oversight ? You have got to be liberals, otherwise, you’d wanna shrink govt. The only way to do that in this situation would be to stop giving money for daycare. Oh that’s right, then we’d be called insensitive, racist, Trump supporting Republicans.
Not seeing the right comments here. Govt is far too involved in people’s lives.
How about making snippy comments about the state not using our tax dollars for childcare in the first place. Then you couldn’t be mad these people hustled the state.
The govt is “at least” twenty times bigger than it should be. Than it was intended to be. Folks have become so dependent upon govt, they have complete control of us. Makes me wonder how the hell people even survived 150 years ago.
My prayers are with both of them and their families. We have to trully stop and think before making foolish decision like this. They really didn’t think this through very well. And the price they would have to pay. Why not just gave up after the first two times. I pray that this is a lesson learned that they can help someone else not to make the same mistake.
Crooks come in all shades and colors. Race doesn’t matter. They need jail time and have to pay restitution to the parents and government. Keep them broke for the rest of their lives.
Sad..No state oversight to where citizens tax dollars are going. State should be held accountable also, someone authorized the payments.
Free day care .At first it sounds like a good idea but any time the Government gets it self in anything it gets robed. I don’t even believe in free lunches. it says something to a child when they get their lunch money from their parents every morning.
Tip of the iceberg and just a tiny bit of that. These types of pre-school operations run largely without any sort of oversight from the Governments that fund them.
Thousands of these individual run operations are “In Business” and do take the kids off parents hands for short and sometimes long periods of time. Some parents use that time to have gainful employment and others just use as free babysitting.
It would be interesting to see which Official person signed-off on the inspection and qualification papers for this Christian pre-school and hold them accountable for any shady practices.
It is OUR Money, Taxpayers, and we are ALL Taxpayers.
Transparency, Accountability, Responsibility are too often only words meaning nothing.
Poo Bear lol lol , a mistake is when the person or persons had no intent, they kept trying this scheme over and over with different names until it finally worked. Stop making excuses for be people and hold them accountable period.
The gov’t is getting their fair share of these monies and they know it. Daycare owners need to be watched every minute, their bank accounts need a paper trail a mile long, not a computer program.
Taking Care of Business
Prayer is the Key
sounds familiar
How in this world could anybody steal this much money from the State of Fl. before somebody noticed? Sounds like the State needs to have a review and overhaul of it’s accounting practices.
I know both of these ladies and all I can do is pray for them and their families… I’m reading the comments and some people are cruel but if you know them like I do you can’t sit here and say things like that. People make mistakes and it’s just sad ….
“sounds like Ms. Shelton was bamboozled” yea I’m sure she was completely innocent and had no idea this was illegal. Who are you kidding besides yourself?
To taxed
The state helps ppl who have to work but can not afford childcare pay for it. It also helps fund the food since daycares are essentially schools. I am paying for them because even if they committed the crimes I know one of them and she is the sweetest woman ever. I am saddened that she felt she had to do this.
Paul i think they have already pre-qualified to run for Mayor of Century.
Praying for them what a joke you must be kidding. I say seize everything they own since it was bought with tax payers money. We will never see that money gone in the wind. And to name the daycare using Christian . These folks have no shame they kept working the system until they finally got what they wanted.
I unfortunately worked with one of these individuals and knew she was shady and thus she ultimately left the company (non child care). This does not surprise me knowing her character. I just hate they took advantage of parents needing child care for their children so they most likely could work.
I hope they throw the book at both of them.
They’re qualified to run for public office now..
Reading this story sounds like Ms. Shelton was bamboozled into this scheme. I hope she doesn’t become the fall guy for the Singers.
Omg! I know these women! Praying for the both of you. And your families.
BEST SENTENCE, Make them repay the state TRIPLE
It is unfortunate that fraud like this happens. The bigger fraud is that the government takes about half of what we work for and enables this fraud to occur. Why is the state involved in child care?
From running a daycare to be soon under state care! They had a pretty good criminal run of things for about a decade. Glad they were caught. Legendary CHRISTIAN Pre-School? Absolutely no shame. If found guilty, make them payback ALL monies illegally obtained and everything else they own as restitution. Then let them sit in prison for a moderately lengthy stay.