Community Prevention Coalition of Jackson County
Outcome
Patrick Martin, 51, former Executive Director of the Community Prevention Coalition of Jackson County, was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison and ordered to pay $507,373.76 in restitution for diverting $375,000 in SAMHSA Drug Free Communities grant funds to personal use while also failing to remit employee payroll taxes.
Details
Community Prevention Coalition of Jackson County — Executive Director Grant Fraud (2014–2018)
Outcome: Patrick Martin, 51, of Gainesboro, Tennessee, former Executive Director of the Community Prevention Coalition of Jackson County, was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison in August 2022 and ordered to pay $507,373.76 in restitution — including $375,000 to SAMHSA and $132,373.76 to the IRS — for diverting Drug Free Communities grant funds to personal use and failing to remit employee payroll taxes.
Beginning in 2014, Martin submitted grant applications to the Department of Health and Human Services for Drug Free Communities program grants and received awards totaling $375,000 over three years. The grants were administered by SAMHSA (Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration) and were intended to fund community-based drug prevention activities by the coalition.
Rather than applying the grant funds to coalition programs as represented in the applications, Martin converted the money to his own personal benefit. He also failed to pay over employment taxes withheld from employees' paychecks to the IRS, using those withheld funds for personal benefit as well.
Martin was initially indicted on 48 counts in May 2019 and pleaded guilty in August 2021 to wire fraud, failure to pay over employment taxes, and filing a false income tax return. He was sentenced in August 2022.
Primary Source: Former Executive Director Of Drug Prevention Coalition Sentenced To Federal Prison
How Crucible Prevents This
Martin submitted fraudulent Drug Free Communities grant applications to SAMHSA claiming the funds would be used for coalition anti-drug programs, then converted the grant money to personal use over multiple grant cycles. Crucible's grant fund tracking hook creates a complete chain of custody for restricted federal grant funds from receipt through documented programmatic use, blocking conversion to personal accounts. A SAMHSA grant performance reporting compliance hook would have flagged the discrepancy between claimed community program activities and actual grant fund expenditures within the first quarterly reporting cycle. Crucible's payroll tax compliance monitor detects when employee tax withholdings are collected but not remitted to the IRS — a common co-occurring violation.
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