Last Updated on July 5, 2022
Fount Holland, a GOP political consultant described as “the Mitch McConnell of Oklahoma,” took $20,000 in taxpayer money from an allegedly fraudulent online charter school to run attack ads against a conservative primary candidate who questioned the legitimacy of the fraudulent school.
Epic Charter Schools, operating in Oklahoma, is under scrutiny, with insiders saying that it’s a scam to fleece taxpayers for an online educational product with questionable enrollment numbers and no real accountability. Oklahoma taxpayers lost at least over $22 million and potentially $55 million or more on the scheme. The Oklahoma Bureau of Investigation busted Epic Charter Schools co-founders Ben Harris and David Chaney and chief financial officer Josh Brock for allegedly funneling public taxpayer money over 50 times into their for-profit company.
Fount Holland, a no-necked political consultant, was on the take. Holland took money directly from Epic Charter Schools to run attack ads against incumbent Republican senator Ron Sharp, calling him a “liberal.” Sharp lost his primary. Sharp questioned the Epic Charter Schools project early on, and he got sued for it by Epic Charter Schools. Fount Holland was previously arrested in 2016 and charged with conspiracy to commit felony election crimes.
“State senator Sharp was like, this doesn’t make sense, so they nuked him. And they used taxpayer money to do it,” a source in Oklahoma said. Evidently, Cindy Byrd, the state auditor and inspector, just got re-elected and she also faced an expensive campaign that was waged against her because she wanted to audit Epic Charter Schools.
The criminal complaint against Epic Charter Schools officials states (p. 45): “Two payments from EDTECH totaling $20,000 to Campaign Advocacy Management Professionals (CAMP) “Fount Holland” produced negative SHARP campaign ads.” EDTECH has been identified as a shell company set up by the ringleaders of Epic Charter Schools.
Here is the criminal complaint:
EPIC schools racket
