HAMPTON ROADS, Va. — A judge has granted Shaun Brown’s motion of change in venue. 
Documents show the judge granted the change in venue to Newport News for the trial, which will be held on October 22. The change in venue will take the trial outside of Virginia’s 2nd District, which Brown has run for Congress in. The case also partially involves campaign financing for her congressional campaign.
The indictment says 58-year-old Brown worked with Virginia nonprofit JOBS Community Outreach Development Corporation and reportedly stole from the USDA’s Summer Food Service Program (SFSP), a federally-funded program to feed children during the summer when free-lunch programs stop at the end of the school year, in 2011 and 2012.
Brown was responsible for running the SFSP for JOBS, and in 2012, Brown and others submitted fraudulent claims for reimbursement, according to the indictment. As part of the scheme, she would direct staff to inflate the numbers of children actually fed and falsify documents in order to obtain additional money.
Prosecutors also accuse her of lying about donating $700,000 to her campaign for Congress, but she’s not facing charges related to that. Court documents say prosecutors plan to show she engaged in “dishonest behavior.”
Brown ran against Taylor as a Democrat in 2016, but lost by a wide margin.
Stay with News 3 for updates on the trial.
