Federal grand jury returns superseding indictment adding new counts for Nancy and Zachary New

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - A federal grand jury has returned a new indictment against Nancy and Zachary New. This indictment takes the place of the one filed in March and adds new charges.

The mother and son ran New Learning Resource, Inc. That business operated New Summit School in Jackson.

While it’s private, the state law allows some public money to go to private schools for students with special academic needs. The indictment indicates the News were intentionally filing fraudulent claims to get reimbursed by the Department of Education.

Also added in the new indictment are four additional counts of “aggravated identity theft.” That’s addition to the five in the previous indictment.

The News have not been arraigned on this latest set of charges to be qualified for reimbursement claims under the Mississippi Adequate Education Program or MAEP.

The latest indictment goes into more detail, saying that for three of the four academic years, the mother and son, “submitted false claims to the MDE that Nancy W. New worked full-time for the entire academic year as a teacher who taught eligible students as NSS in Jackson, knowing that Nancy W. New did not teach full-time during those years, which resulted in fraudulent reimbursement to NLR of $63,370.00 for Nancy W. New for each of those three years.”

The overall amount that New Learning Resources School District allegedly “fraudulently obtained” is also increased in the superseding indictment. It was originally listed as “in excess of two million million” but now notes “well in excess of four million dollars.”

Also added in the new indictment are four additional counts of “aggravated identity theft.” That’s addition to the five in the previous indictment.

The News have not been arraigned on this latest set of charges. We will update this story as more information becomes available.

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