SALINE CO.—With the confirmation that the Illinois Attorney General is investigating the Anna Bixby Women’s Center, more reports of the shenanigans involving director Barbara Wingo and her daughter, employee Terrie Eichorn are oozing out.
Disclosure confirmed in late November that a grand jury has been seated in Saline County, home base of the Anna Bixby Center (ABC), a facility that since 1979 has taken in state and federal grants, public money from an assortment of other funding mechanisms, and private donations…and, according to allegations emerging in mid-2013, abusing the funds by personal use of public dollars, an act which is frowned upon by agencies of oversight such as the AG’s office.
Since the publication of the initial article in early December, Disclosure has been inundated with information about those who have allegedly been harmed in various ways by the agency designed to help women and children get out of abusive situations.
Everything from leaning on local businesses under threat of being publicly denounced to an odd case of segregated parenting being advocated by the center make for an interesting rumor mill brewing in Harrisburg. But the problem is, most of it isn’t “rumor”…it’s hard facts that are emerging as more and more people come forward to reveal what they know about the situation…and where, exactly, the taxpayers’ money has been spent.
The Rafter M debacle
Anecdotally, one person has come forward to Disclosure revealing a situation that occurred, to the best of their recollection, in about 2006 or 2007.
At that time, Barbara Wingo approached a local horseback riding center, Rafter M, and informed them that a grant had been awarded to the Women’s Center to allow children to take riding lessons in conjunction with a program that was never fully explained to the owner of that now-closed facility.
When the owner of Rafter M looked at the prospective classes, it was quickly determined that the amount earmarked in the grant for riding lessons was not nearly enough to meet the costs of providing those lessons.
When this was mentioned to Wingo, she was reported to have become irate, and it was hinted at that if the classes were not provided, she would “get” the riding center by denouncing them as being “anti-woman and anti-child.”
The center was expected to provide the riding lessons and eat the overages of the cost, this all with the fact that no one connected with Rafter M ever saw the amount of money designated for the purposes of riding lessons.
The owner of the center declined the offer from ABC after the initial contact.
Racial motives
In follow up contacts, (and because, Disclosure was told, Wingo isn’t the type to take “no” for an answer), it was explained that the riding lessons were part of some type of parenting classes. Apparently, Disclosure was advised, it was to be a case of “giving the kids a recreational activity along with the classes given to their parents.”
Interestingly, it came out at the time that the classes would be racially segregated (at Wingo’s behest) because “Black people and white people parent differently,” an idea that was considered abhorrent to the owner of the riding center. Even more troubling was that it was then hinted that if the riding center declined to participate in the program, then it might come out that there were ‘racial motives’ behind the refusal.
The owner of Rafter M again declined to be involved with the program, citing the costs involved.
There was an additional problem here in that no one had ever discussed the matter with the riding center before applying for the grant.
Typically, when a grant is applied for, all costs will be calculated and all parties involved will have weighed in on the logistics before the grant is ever written. It is virtually unheard of to involve a third party without their knowledge. This is because in the event that the grant is awarded it and it turns out that the third party is not on board, the entity that requested the grant can face serious legal consequences.
That never happened in this case. The owner of the riding center was never consulted and only became aware of the grant after it had been awarded to ABC.
When looking into the matter further it was puzzling that the foundation that had awarded the grant was not only unaware that the riding center had not been consulted…but it didn’t care. Their function was to disperse the state and federal funds and report back to those respective sources what they had done with the money. They were not required to ascertain what happened to the money after it left their hands. A little more digging led back to Terrie Eichorn being directly involved with the awarding of the grant to ABC and to Barbara Wingo. As the riding lessons never took place as stipulated in the grant, it begs the question of what eventually happened to the money.
Nice way to make a living
Disclosure’s source on the matter opined that it would be a pretty slick trick, all things considered.
“Just have a family member set up a foundation and collect state and federal funds, knowing that while the foundation will have to account for where the money goes, the foundation doesn’t have to insist on an accounting from those to whom they allocate that money,” the source said. “You would be able to apply for grants and be awarded them all the while knowing that you will never have to actually account for the money officially. That could explain how it’s possible for someone making a paltry salary to live as well as the Wingo and Eichorn families live. It would also be untaxable and virtually impossible to trace unless the Attorney General gets involved and is specifically looking for this type of activity.”
Disclosure continues to take in information about the situation; the grand jury has been convened for an unknown period of time and continues to be seated as it can. Disclosure was advised that the AG’s office elected to come to Saline County to handle the matter with a grand jury investigation instead of taking in the information in Springfield and issuing charges from that venue (much like they did with the three women who were former deputy circuit clerks in neighboring Williamson County in September: Cheryl Cundiff, Marsha Sue Davis-Dickinson and Kelly Trammel).
There has been no official word on the status of the investigation into the Anna Bixby Center since late November.