Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond announced Monday that he had assumed control of a State lawsuit against the Florida-based company ClassWallet that he later dismissed.
In his statement yesterday, Drummond reaffirmed his stance on not pursuing what he saw as a “frivolous suit”.
“I have been clear and consistent in communicating with the Governor on this matter,” Drummond said. “I will not allow taxpayer funds and State resources to be wasted in pursuit of this meritless lawsuit.”
The lawsuit claimed that ClassWallet had misused a significant portion of the $18 million in federal dollars that Oklahoma had hired the company to distribute to families looking to pay for tuition and school supplies.
Two separate audits from the US Department of Education and State Auditor Cindy Byrd revealed the misuse of state funds, including the purchases of items such as video game consoles, home appliances, furniture and Christmas trees that totaled over $1.7 million.
Drummond, who dismissed a similar lawsuit against the ClassWallet last year, has maintained that responsibility for the misspent federal relief dollars falls not on the company, but on individual state actors.
Drummond claims state officials rejected the use of their own internal oversight and ClassWallet’s available controls while also failing to develop any written monitoring procedures.
The initial lawsuit against ClassWallet was filed in August 2022 by then-Attorney General John O’Connor. The litigation sat idle for 179 days before being dismissed by Drummond during his first month in office.
ClassWallet has since released a statement on the dismissed lawsuit, expressing gratitude towards Drummond for confirming the allegations against their company were ‘wholly without merit”.
