HOUSTON -- A ministry group hired to pick up trash along Texas highways is accused of dumping the garbage in other parts of town after receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars, KPRC Local 2 reported Tuesday.

The indictment charges David & Ivory Ministries Inc. with illegal dumping, which is a state felony.

The nonprofit group operates a halfway house and drug treatment center partially funded through a contract with the Texas Department of Transportation.

TxDOT is paying David & Ivory $231,000 this year to clean up litter along highways in Brazoria County.

But investigators with the Precinct 1 environmental unit said some of that garbage wound up on Houston streets.

They found over 40 cubic yards of it dumped in a vacant south side lot. Then, a month later, they found another load they traced back to the group, officials said.

"They were just dumping it wherever they could get rid of it. We found two locations earlier this year where we know they dumped illegally," said Harris County Precinct 1 Constable Chief J. C. Mosier.

David & Ivory Ministries is headquartered in southwest Houston. CEO Manuel Fields did not want to talk on camera because he said he has not seen the indictment.

But off camera, he denied the ministries had anything to do with illegal dumping. He blamed it on a waste hauler the ministries used that he said was supposed to deliver the garbage to a municipal dump.

The Harris County Precinct 1 Constable's Office operates one of the few environmental crime units in the region.

The indictment against David & Ivory Ministries Inc. was returned on Friday following a 5 1/2-month-long investigation.