SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) — A former Caddo Parish Commissioner and his sister are headed to prison for their roles in a scheme to defraud the USDA’s Food and Nutrition Service that administers summer Child Nutrition Programs.
Lynn Cawthorne and his sister, Belena Turner, pleaded guilty in November to wire fraud in connection with the scheme. Cawthorne also pleaded guilty to tax fraud. On Wednesday, both were sentenced to three years and 10 months for the wire fraud. Cawthorne also got three years for the tax fraud, which will be served concurrently.
The sentences were on the lower end of the sentencing guidelines for potential prison time on the charges, which allow up to 20 years in prison for wire fraud. They were, however, ordered to pay $132,000 in restitution, which is more than half of the maximum $250,000 in fines allowed under sentencing guidelines.
Beginning sometime in early 2011 and continuing until sometime in December 2015, Cawthorne and Turner fraudulently obtained more than $536,000 from the Summer Feeding Service Program (SFSP) by engaging in numerous activities to defraud, including filing claims for reimbursement that greatly inflated the number of eligible meals provided, thus claiming more children were fed at UCAN sites than were actually fed.
Cawthorne and Turner were indicted in April 2018 on eight counts of wire fraud-related charges. Another 18 counts of money laundering charges were added to their indictments in Feb. 2019. Cawthorne served on the Caddo Parish Commission at the time, representing District D. He handily won re-election to the seat in October 2019, only to resign the following month, days after taking the plea deals and just days before the trial was set to begin.
Both Cawthorne and Turner were ordered to report for prison on May 2.
