2 people from out of state charged with defrauding Arizona school voucher program

PHOENIX – Two people from out of state have been indicted for allegedly defrauding the Arizona school voucher program of over $100,000, authorities announced Monday.

Johnny Lee Bowers and Ashley Meredith Hewitt, aka Ashley Hopkins, are accused of submitting Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) applications for 50 children, 43 of whom do not exist, according to the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.

The applications were made with fraudulent documents such as birth certificates, utility bills and lease agreements. Bowers and Hewitt allegedly submitted them under their own names as well as under the names of made-up “ghost” parents, prosecutors said.

Bowers and Hewitt were indicted last month on one count each of conspiracy and fraudulent schemes/artifices and 60 counts of forgery.

Prosecutors said the pair received about $110,000 from the ESA program and spent it on personal living expenses in Colorado. They now apparently live in Utah, the AG’s Office said.

How was fraudulent ESA activity detected?

Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Horne said the Department of Education submitted the matter, and other suspected fraud cases, to the AG’s Office.

“I am pleased that prosecutions are following in the cases we sent to the Attorney General’s Office,” he said in a statement.

Horne added that he is determined to eliminate ESA fraud.

“Upon taking office, I hired an auditor who had been in the Auditor General’s Office for 15 years and who is now in charge of the ESA program, as well as an investigator. Those two positions had not existed under my predecessor,” he said.

What is the Arizona school voucher program?

The Arizona school voucher program allows families who don’t send their kids to public schools to be reimbursed for some of their educational expenses, including private school tuition and homeschooling supplies.

The program, which was created in 2011, was originally limited to schoolchildren with disabilities or who met other specific criteria. But it became universal after the Republican-led Legislature and then-Gov. Doug Ducey removed the limitations in 2022 in the name of school choice.

Opponents of the universal expansion argued that the system would largely benefit wealthy families who already were paying for private schools and hurt public schools by siphoning away money.

In August 2023, Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes told KTAR News 92.3 FM’s The Mike Broomhead Show she worried ESAs would be susceptible to fraud due to the program’s rapid growth and lack of controls.

Beth Lewis, executive director of public school advocacy group Save Our Schools Arizona and a vocal critic of universal vouchers, blamed lawmakers for approving the expansion without sufficient oversight.

“Arizona’s ESA voucher program is wide open for fraud and abuse — and the Republican majority in the Arizona Legislature has refused to add any oversight or accountability,” Lewis said in statement Monday. “Misuse and outright fraud will continue to abound until lawmakers add serious guardrails to this off-the-rails entitlement program.”

Recently, many parents have been complaining about how long the reimbursements take. Horne has blamed the issue on insufficient staffing.

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