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| Guilty, guilty, guilty. |
Weed and work in the Woods: The Senator's hijinks took advantage of Ecclesia's rare designation | Arkansas Blog:
"The most colorful scheme described by federal prosecutors in the recently completed trial of former state Sen. Jon Woods was a gimmick to direct marijuana tax money to Ecclesia College.
Woods, who was found guilty earlier this month on federal corruption charges related to kickback schemes, including to Ecclesia, tried to sneak language into the medical marijuana amendment that would have directed money straight to the tiny Bible college in Springdale, according to testimony at the trial. "I think it is great to take money from Satan and Kingdom of darkness and put it to Kingdom of God use," then Ecclesia President Oren Paris III, who pleaded guilty for his own role in the kickback scheme, told Woods.
The novel gimmick — first reported by the Arkansas Blog — would have put language specifically designating some of the tax revenues from medical marijuana to go to grants for federally recognized "work colleges," an unusual designation that only seven liberal arts colleges in the U.S. have. These schools make up the "Work Colleges Consortium." The key for Woods was that Ecclesia was the only such college in the state, allowing the senator a mechanism to direct money straight to Ecclesia without ever putting the school's name into any of the language.
I suspect I am not the only one who had no idea what a "work college" was until it turned up in the news. It turns out...it's a pretty interesting concept! (Amusingly, some of the seven members of the Work Colleges Consortium are polar opposites of Ecclesia, such as the famously hippie college Warren Wilson). The program is distinct from the need-based federal work-study program; at work colleges, all students are enrolled in the program, with jobs on campus, typically working 8 to 15 hours per week. "
'via Blog this'
