A woman calling herself a prophetess instead decided to profit by stealing from hungry children. Police say that self-proclaimed Prophetess Jeanette Jives-Nealy operated the Kingdom Dominion Worldwide Ministries, Inc., and had a food ministry to feed hungry children in her community. As part of the Summer Food Service Program, she received more than $160K in state funds for the project. But authorities stated that after a surprise audit by the Tennessee Department of Human Services, it was found that Jives-Nealy was not using the cash to feed the children. Instead of feeding children, Jives-Nealy spent tens of thousands of dollars on retail items and travel, and transferred more than $25K into a savings account, the state’s comptroller found.
Surprisingly, this is not the first time Jives-Nealy has been accused of stealing funds meant to feed the needy. In 2007, she was convicted of multiple counts of racketeering, conspiracy, money laundering, forgeries and theft in Florida. She stole $200K in school voucher funds that were supposed to be used to help disabled and special needs students. Her son Demario Jives was also arrested in that case but was not convicted. Jives-Nealy spent five years in prison and was released in 2011. After her release, she and her son then moved to Memphis, Tennessee and opened Kingdom Dominion Worldwide. The pair then started a food ministry and were able to receive cash advances from the Tennessee Department of Human Resources as part of its effort to help hungry children. She claimed that her ministry fed 40,500 children with the money from the state and because of this she was given even more cash for her fraudulent scheme. This was in spite of the fact that she was on ten year probation from her arrest in Florida.
Because of lax oversight rules, Jives-Nealy was able to keep her scam going until July 2014 when a surprise inspection caught her in a lie. When auditors arrived at her office at Kingdom Dominion to review records, she stated the paperwork had been damaged by a flood that occurred in the building that morning. However, it was noted that there was no evidence of flooding or water damage in the building. After a long investigation, Jives-Nealy was arrested this week and indicted on fraud and theft charges.
