Mississippi changes legal team to handle welfare fraud case

By EMILY WAGSTER PETTUS
Associated Press

JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — The Mississippi Department of Human Services is hiring a different law firm to try to recover millions of dollars in welfare money that was misspent in the state’s largest public corruption case in decades. The state Personnel Board on Thursday approved a contract for the department to hire the Jones Walker firm, which has about 370 attorneys in multiple states. This comes weeks after Department of Human Services leaders chose not to renew a contract with Brad Pigott. He was the U.S. attorney for southern Mississippi when Democrat Bill Clinton was president. In May, Pigott sued former NFL quarterback Brett Favre and and others to try to recover misspent welfare money.