BATON ROUGE — A man accused of defrauding an East Baton Rouge Parish health program pleaded not guilty to filing false records and theft on Thursday. 

According to the attorney general's office, Roderick Shannon allegedly defrauded the Safe, Hopeful, Healthy BR, a sub-unit of Mayor's Healthy City Initiative. 

The AG's office said that, around July 2022, Shannon submitted an invoice and program reports purporting that he had sponsored local events involving MADD Marvin. The AG's office added that Shannon paid approximately $3,041.66 for those alleged services.

In July, Shannon was arrested on two counts of filing or maintaining false public records, and one count of felony theft.

This week, he was in court for an arraignment and pleaded not guilty to these charges, which were brought on amid a state probe into corruption within the city-parish government. He is due back in court Nov. 18 for a motion hearing.