Zach New, left, and his mother Nancy New exit the Cochran federal courthouse on March 18, 2021, in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi Today

The state accepted the guilty pleas of Nancy and Zach New in Mississippi’s sprawling welfare scandal on Tuesday — a move that makes their agreement to cooperate with prosecutors and testify against their co-defendants official.

The News had submitted their guilty pleas for the state charges last week. 

Nancy New, a 69-year-old former educator, is pleading guilty to four counts of bribing a public official, two counts of fraud against the government, six counts of wire fraud and one count of racketeering. Her deal comes with a total maximum sentence of 100 years, but prosecutors have recommended that the state sentence her to equal or lesser time than her federal sentence, once federal sentencing has occurred. 

In other words, state prosecutors recommend Nancy New serve her entire sentence in federal prison — allowing her to avoid serving time in the more barbaric state prisons — and serve no additional time for the state charges above what she serves in the federal case. She pleaded guilty in the federal case earlier last week to one count of money laundering, which carries a maximum sentence of ten years.

READ MORE: Nancy and Zach New plead guilty to bribery and fraud in state welfare case

Zach New, the 39-year-old vice president of his mother’s nonprofit, pleaded guilty to the same charges, minus racketeering and one less count of wire fraud. State prosecutors have offered him the same deal to serve only the number of years he receives in the separate federal case. He pleaded guilty in the federal case to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, which comes with a maximum sentence of five years. 

Prosecutors split off Zach’s charge in a separate bill of information, a document that is filed when a defendant agrees to plead guilty without the grand jury handing down an indictment, to ensure that Zach would be able to serve his time in federal prisons.

Both Nancy and Zach New have agreed to cooperate with prosecutors and testify against their co-defendants. Both state and federal criminal investigations are ongoing and could result in charges against additional people, sources close to the probes say.

READ MORE: Phil Bryant had his sights on a payout as welfare funds flowed to Brett Favre

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Julia, a Louisiana native, covered K-12 education. She previously served as an investigative intern with Mississippi Today helping cover the welfare scandal. She is a 2021 graduate of the University of Mississippi, where she studied journalism and public policy and was a member of the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College. She has also been published in The New York Times and the Clarion-Ledger.

Anna Wolfe is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter who covers inequity and corruption in government safety net programs, nonprofit service providers and institutions affecting the marginalized.

She began reporting for Mississippi Today in 2018, after she approached the editor with the idea of starting a poverty beat, the first of its kind in the state.

Wolfe has received national recognition for her years-long coverage of Mississippi’s welfare program, in which she exposed new details about how officials funneled tens of millions of federal public assistance funds away from needy families and instead to their friends, families and the pet projects of famous athletes.

Since joining Mississippi Today, she has received several national honors including the Pulitzer Prize for Local Reporting, the Livingston Award, two Goldsmith Prizes for Investigative Reporting, the Collier Prize for State Government Accountability, the Sacred Cat Award, the Nellie Bly Award, the John Jay/Harry Frank Guggenheim Excellence in Criminal Justice Reporting Award, the Al Neuharth Innovation in Investigative Journalism Award, the Sidney Award, the National Press Foundation’s Poverty and Inequality Award and others.

Previously, Wolfe worked for three years at Clarion Ledger, Mississippi’s statewide newspaper, where she covered city hall, health care, and wrote stories about hunger and medical billing, earning the Bill Minor Prize for Investigative Journalism two years in a row.

Born and raised on the Puget Sound in Washington State, Wolfe moved to Mississippi in 2012 to attend Mississippi State University, where she currently serves on the Digital Journalism Advisory Board. She has lived in Jackson, Mississippi since graduating in 2014.