Two days after a grand jury indicted a former Idaho state government employee on two felony counts of misuse of public funds, a local judge dismissed the case — after a request from the prosecutor.
The case marked the first criminal charges — and a rare public update — to emerge from a yearslong investigation launched by Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador that probed how the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare doled out $72 million in federal child care grantsin 2021 and 2022.
The official who was criminally charged, Ericka Rupp, oversaw the grant program. In the indictment, filed in Canyon County District Court last week, the grand jury charged Rupp with two felony counts of misuse of public funds and securities, for allegedly illegally authorizing, appropriating or otherwise misusing more than $300 of the government’s money.
Labrador’s special prosecutor, Canyon County Prosecuting Attorney Christopher Boyd, told the Idaho Capital Sun that the amount of money allegedly misused was not specified in the indictment, but that it would’ve been an issue to determine during a potential trial…