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Attorney General: 2 indicted for $110,000 school voucher fraud

Then-Democratic candidate Kris Mayes speaks with the media after a televised debate against Republican Abraham Hamadeh for Arizona attorney general, Wed, Sept. 28, 2022.
Ross D. Franklin/AP
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AP
Then-Democratic candidate Kris Mayes speaks with the media after a televised debate against Republican Abraham Hamadeh for Arizona attorney general, Wed, Sept. 28, 2022.

Attorney General Kris Mayes says two Utah residents have been indicted by a grand jury after allegedly submitting false applications to receive $110,000 in Arizona school vouchers.

Mayes says Johnny Lee Bowers and Ashley Meredith Hewitt applied to the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Account (ESA) program for 50 children, nearly all of whom didn't exist.

Mayes says they used their own names, and forged documents like birth certificates and utility bills to make up so-called “ghost parents” and “ghost children.”

Arizona's ESA program allows parents to get state money to pay for their children to attend a private school, or be home-schooled.

According to law enforcement, Bowers and Meredith used the voucher money to pay for their lives in Colorado.

They face numerous charges of fraud, conspiracy and forgery.