Mid-August Dates Cited for Former EDA Executive Director Jennifer McDonald to Report for Federal Incarceration

Sources close to the situation report having been told that former Front Royal-Warren County Economic Development Authority Executive Director Jennifer Rae McDonald has received target dates to report to federal authorities to begin serving the 14-year prison sentence she received on May 29 following her upheld jury convictions on 30 of 34 criminal indictements related the EDA “financial scandal”. McDonald was cited as a central figure in the unauthorized movement of millions of dollars of EDA assets to her own personal benefit, as much as $6.5 million it was said at trial, or the benefit of others. Including the $12 million received by Truc “Curt” Tran’s ITFederal for its aborted economic development project on 30 acres at the former Avtex Superfund site in Front Royal, which EDA legal counsel successfully argued at civil trial was acquired under false pretenses, an estimated $23 million was fraudulently moved during the 2014 to 2018 timeframe of the EDA “financial scandal” during McDonald’s FR-WC EDA leadership.

Jennifer McDonald on the job as EDA executive director, with the late Patty Wines, then EDA Board chairman, to her left. Below, McDonald’s mug shot from her initial arrest in the spring of 2019, several months after her resignation by email on Dec. 20, 2018, as the EDA board began scrutinizing her financial activities. Royal Examiner File Photos

The dates cited for her to report to begin incarceration were between August 11 and 17. And perhaps surprisingly it was also reported that McDonald will be sent to FMC (Federal Medical Center) Carswell, in Fort Worth, Texas. As we recall from the sentencing hearing before Judge Elizabeth K. Dillon, McDonald’s defense team of Federal Court-appointed attorneys Andrea Harris and Abigail Thibeault had requested their client be sent to a Federal Prison Camp with an in-house medical facility. Readers may recall that among the several trial delays last fall, including one of a week, another of nearly two weeks, largely due to medical issues with involved parties, the longest one accommodated McDonald receiving a pacemaker to deal with heart rate and blood pressure issues she was experiencing during trial.

FMC Carswell is described as “An administrative security federal medical center with an adjacent minimum security stellite (sic) camp located in Fort Worth, TX”. The Bureau Of Prisons website notes the women’s medical center/prison complex currently houses 1,149 total inmates, with 1,016 at the Federal Medical Center, and 133 in the satellite camp, as it is described elsewhere on the facility website. Reportedly, it may be the closest, if not only federal prison in the nation with a full in-house medical facility.

The minimum security FMC (Federal Medical Center) Carswell, Fort Worth, Texas, where it is reported Jennifer McDonald will be ordered to begin serving her prison sentence mid-August at the Medical Center section of the female prison complex. Below, the minimum security women’s prison camp at Alderson, West Virginia, where some thought McDonald might be incarcerated closer to home, but with no in-house medical facility.

There had been some talk that McDonald would be housed at the minimum security Alderson Federal Prison Camp in nearby West Virginia, which would have been more conventient to visitation by relatives in Warren County.

Attempts to reach court officials in Harrisonburg for verification of the above-cited information were unsuccessful prior to publication. This story will be updated as more information becomes available.

It is also reported that the Faith Way home of McDonald and husband Samuel North, that they recently were forced to move out of due to ordered foreclosure as part of EDA asset recovery, will be sold at public auction on the front steps of the Warren County Courthouse on September 19, 2024 at 1:00 p.m.