ST. LOUIS — Connie Bobo was expected to plead guilty on Wednesday to defrauding a program meant to feed low-income children.
But when U.S. District Judge Audrey Fleissig asked Bobo if she was happy with how her lawyer had represented her, Bobo paused.
The silence stretched for nearly a minute.
“I don’t feel that there has been enough preparation for trial,” Bobo said. “I am pleading guilty because I feel I have no choice.”
Are you, Fleissig asked, actually guilty?
“Absolutely not,” Bobo responded.
In the 30 minutes that followed, Bobo denied a litany of facts listed in her plea agreement.
She said she never intended to defraud the government, didn’t request $11 million in reimbursements for meals that were never delivered and didn’t falsify records for her nonprofit, New Heights Community Resource Center.
“Every dollar that I invoiced for, I earned it,” Bobo said. “(The government) may not like how I spent it, but I provided every meal that I said.”
What happened in federal court on Wednesday is unusual. Plea agreements are a common way to resolve cases before trial. They are written documents, prepared in advance of hearings, containing the agreed-upon facts of the case after negotiation between prosecutors, defense attorneys and their clients. It is rare for a defendant to renege on such agreements at the last second.
Bobo’s case started in 2020, during the pandemic.
Bobo had run an early childhood center for almost a decade through her nonprofit, New Heights. But the facility had to close during government shutdowns, Bobo told the Post-Dispatch in a 2022 interview.
Instead, New Heights started offering a meal service for children under a U.S. Department of Agriculture program that reimbursed her for the cost of food.
At its height, her nonprofit was operating 32 food distribution sites, most in the St. Louis region, and claiming as much as $1.8 million a month in reimbursements, Bobo said.
New Heights bought a building worth $2 million that used to house a big-box electronics store, according to a Post-Dispatch story from the time. It bought a $975,000 house in St. Charles where Bobo lived. She also claimed it was an office for the nonprofit.
But in June 2022, New Heights drew the attention of Missouri officials, who flagged millions of dollars in submitted claims. The USDA blacklisted Bobo and her nonprofit’s president from participating in the program.
Over a year later, in October 2023, Bobo was indicted on charges of wire fraud, identity theft and obstructing an official proceeding by altering a document.
In addition to the St. Charles home, the indictment said Bobo bought a house in St. Peters for her sister and three other properties in St. Charles County. It said she gave $1.4 million to her romantic partner, who used $212,000 of it to buy a Mercedes-Benz G550 Wagon 4×4 Squared.
Bobo pleaded not guilty and was released from jail to await trial.
But in August last year, federal prosecutors asked a judge to lock her back up. Bobo had violated the conditions of her release by remaining in financial control of her daycare business despite orders to stay away.
When a federal pretrial services officer confronted her about it, Bobo responded with a biblical reference: “NO WEAPON FORMED AGAINST ME EVER PROSPERS.”
A few weeks later, federal agents went to Bobo’s house to arrest her. She refused to come out for two hours, records show, until agents breached the front door and Bobo was arrested while trying to escape through a side door.
A judge set Bobo’s trial for Oct. 20 of this year. Instead, Bobo said she wanted to change her plea.
On Wednesday afternoon, Bobo’s lawyer, prosecutors and a few of her supporters gathered in a 12th-floor courtroom.
Bobo was set to plead guilty to fraud and obstructing an official proceeding.
In exchange, the government would dismiss six other charges, including three counts of aggravated identity theft, which carry mandatory minimum sentences of two years.
But shortly after the hearing started, Bobo began to express her doubts to the judge.
Bobo’s lawyer, Atlanta-based Katryna Spearman, asked for a moment to speak with her client. They whispered back and forth.
Then Bobo told Judge Fleissig that she’d plead guilty. “I want to go forward for my family and to avoid trial,” she said.
Fleissig said she couldn’t accept Bobo’s plea unless it was true.
“It sounds that you’re not willing to admit that you engaged in acts that support the elements of these charges,” Fleissig said.
Fleissig began reading one of the allegations: Bobo submitted fake meeting minutes.
“Those are lies,” Bobo said.
Then Fleissig outlined another allegation: Bobo altered an invoice to make it look like she bought 300 gallons of milk for meals.
Bobo said she knew that the invoice — sent to Jefferson City after authorities began investigating New Heights — was falsified, but she wasn’t the one who did it.
“I’m aware of the invoice,” she said. “I did not do it.”
Fleissig then turned to the lawyers.
“I don’t know what we’re doing here at this point,” she said.
“I agree,” prosecutor Derek Wiseman said.
Bobo’s trial is expected to begin Oct. 20.
She is now facing all eight charges: three counts of wire fraud, three counts of aggravated identity theft and two counts of obstructing an official proceeding.
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Katie Kull | Post-Dispatch
Courts reporter
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