Brown Trial Dismissed

The arrest of Evelyn Marshell Brown, wife of Bolivar County coroner and local physician Dr. Nathaniel Brown, Oct. 2, 2007, sent shockwaves through the community. She was arrested by FBI agents and charged with 17 counts of healthcare fraud associated with her operating of Rehabilicare, Inc. in Cleveland.

Similar offices were open in Meridian, Jackson and Moss Point. The trial against Brown was slated for November that same year, but the case never went and on Dec. 5, 2008, a motion was made by the U.S. Attorneys Office to dismiss the case.

The only thing I can tell you is that the case was dismissed without prejudice against her, an official with the U.S. Attorneys Office said. I cannot comment as to anything further with the case. Dismissing without prejudice means that the case can be brought back up during a certain period of time by prosecutors.
According to the indictment, Brown entered into a scheme with Pamela Hull, Janis Kaye Dunn and Jacqualine Crawley to defraud Medicare through over billing and fictitious billing. The indictment said that May 5, 2000-May 2, 2006, Rehabilicare had billed out $23,158,917 and had received $5,073,100.61 from Medicare.

Dunn, Hull and Crawley have a scheduled sentencing date of June 15, 2009, in Courtroom 806 in Gulfport. Judge Louis Guirola Jr. is presiding.

Bright Beginnings Foundation

By Keith Wood
The Cleveland Current Contributing Writer

The Bright Beginnings Foundation offered an art exhibit Thursday at The Warehouse and the event helped raise money which will go towards preparing families and children under the age of five for school readiness.

A children’s exhibit was held, offering for-sale works from kindergartners at the price equivalent to the child’s age plus $1. The adult art showing featured over 41 artists totaling over 350 pieces. Although Delta area artists composed most of the art, some came from as far away as New Mexico, Tennessee, Arkansas and the Gulf Coast. Pieces covered two and three-dimensional art as well as photography, pottery, mixed media, and oil, water and acrylic paintings.

Gail Cheney, chairman for this year’s exhibit, said, “We were so pleased with the attendance. This is our one fundraiser for the year and we are so grateful to everyone who bought any of these fine pieces of work.”

Jennifer Armstrong, treasurer, estimated over $4,000 was raised at the event.
The mission of the Bright Beginnings Foundation is “to ensure that families of all children, prenatal through kindergarten, have the needed attention, commitment, and resources of the Cleveland community in order for their children to thrive and have a healthy life of learning, achieving, and succeeding.”

DSU Funding

By Michael Simmons
The Cleveland Current Managing Editor

With the passage of HB 1722, a bond issue totaling $282,350,000, Delta State University would receive a substantial amount of money for repairs and renovations to Caylor-White Hall and Walters Hall.

The measure is expected to be signed by the governor with no problems and that would give the science and math building $3.3 million to begin phase one of a complete overhaul.

Built between 1974-1976, according to Greg Redlin, vice president of finance for DSU, “There has been virtually no maintenance on the building with the exception of a new roof.

“We have for a number of years now had as our number one building priority the renovation of this facility and over the years the building has made its way up to the top,” Redlin explained. “The total renovation estimate is $24 million and we had broken that into two phases.”

The first phase of the project is estimated to cost $11.5 million and the second phase $12.5 million.

Nurse Funding

Michael Simmons
The Cleveland Current Managing Editor

The Delta State University Nursing School, which is currently in the process of a facelift, will soon be getting a name change too. Soon to be named after Robert E. Smith, a retired farmer, the nursing school has quietly risen to become of one DSUs greatest assets. We have actually tripled our enrollment since 2003, so weve really been working hard, Lizabeth Carlson, dean of the school, said. Weve had grant money to help us with recruitment and weve been working really hard on retention.

The renovation to the school has been ongoing since spring 2008, and is funded through a five-year grant with the Delta Health Alliance. Were doubling the size of our clinical lab space and were actually expanding the school, Carlson said. Were going to make the new part of it a high-fidelity simulation lab with computerized patient simulators.

They also increased the size of the two smaller classrooms and in the last year of funding, Carlson hopes to add on a computer lab. As for the name change, it was recently announced that Smith pledged $2.1 million to the school and to honor Smith for his gift, which is the largest donation to the university from a single person, future nurses will now learn in the Robert E. Smith School of Nursing. According to DSU, this will be the first academic unit ever named after an individual at the university.