MANDAN, N.D. — A Fargo activist has
to theft charges that said she misappropriated state-issued funds to her family.
46, entered guilty pleas to three felony counts on Monday, Oct. 20, in Burleigh County District Court. Two other counts of theft will be dismissed.
The charges allege Shields-Dixon gave grant money from the North Dakota Department of Public Instruction to businesses owned or managed by her relatives from Feb. 3, 2022, to April 10, 2023. Those businesses included her husband’s food stand, her brother’s music and production company and her sister-in-law’s dance studio, according to court documents.
Shields-Dixon applied for $1.5 million in grants from the DPI through her nonprofit, the Faith4Hope Scholarship Fund, according to court documents. The grant was meant for after-school programs that help students who were disproportionately affected by COVID-19 school closures, North Dakota Attorney General Drew Wrigley said in a statement issued after Monday’s hearing.
Shields-Dixon started her nonprofit in 2016 as a way to help low-income families, according to the Faith4Hope website. That website is no longer available online.
The DPI approved $350,000 for the fund that would be handed out over the course of three years to Faith4Hope, court documents said. Shields-Dixon allocated $124,000 to her family’s businesses, according to reimbursements described in court documents.
The DPI asked the North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation, which Wrigley’s office oversees, to look into Shields-Dixon’s nonprofit after “initial disbursements revealed significant conflicts of interest in violation” of the DPI grant program, Wrigley said in his statement.
“The DPI works hard to support strong programs for students while also making sure public dollars are spent responsibly and with accountability,” Wrigley said in the statement. “We all want to ensure the money is being used to benefit children who participate in after-school programs, and this criminal prosecution should serve as a deterrent to others who might try to use these funds unlawfully.”
Charges were filed Oct. 10, 2024, in Burleigh County District Court because state money was involved and the DPI is based in Bismarck. Monday’s plea hearing was held in Mandan, which is the Morton County seat. Burleigh and Morton counties use each other’s courthouses interchangeably.
A sentencing hearing has been scheduled for Jan. 20 in Morton County. Prosecutors from Wrigley’s office plan to ask Judge Bobbi Weiler to sentence Shields-Dixon to 11 months in the Burleigh-Morton Detention Center, according to a plea agreement she signed.
Her defense attorney, Dane DeKrey, will argue for four months behind bars, the agreement said.
In a news release issued earlier this month, Shields-Dixon asked the public to wait until after her sentencing to draw conclusions. Facts of what did and didn’t happen in the case are expected to come out during sentencing, DeKrey told The Forum after the Monday hearing.
He and prosecutors agree Shields-Dixon did something illegal, DeKrey said.
“The specifics of what and how are going to be the central focus of the sentencing hearing,” he said, adding that will determine her sentence.
Shields-Dixon is an activist in the Fargo-Moorhead area who has fought for the rights and voices of people of color.
Her husband, Charles Dixon, also was charged with two felony counts of theft in connection to her case. A four-day trial for his case is scheduled to begin Nov. 18.
