A former Illinois public faculty meals service director for an impoverished Chicago-area district has been sentenced to 9 years in jail after stealing $1.5 million in hen wings from the county.
Vera Liddell, 66, labored for Harvey Faculty District 152 for over a decade.
“The large fraud started on the peak of COVID throughout a time when college students weren’t allowed to be bodily current in class,” reads a proffer at Liddell’s bond listening to, in accordance with a report from native station WGN9. “Although the kids had been studying remotely, the varsity district continued to supply meals for the scholars that their households may choose up.”
The prosecution accused Lindell of ordering 11,000 circumstances of hen wings with the district’s cash and selecting them up in a county van.
“The meals was by no means dropped at the varsity or offered to the scholars,” the court docket doc defined.
The doc didn’t clarify what occurred to the wings after Lindell took them.
“The scheme was uncovered by the district’s enterprise supervisor throughout a routine mid-year audit. The supervisor discovered the district was $300,000 over its annual meals service funds regardless of solely being midway by the varsity 12 months, in accordance with prosecutors,” the native information report explains.
“She found particular person invoices signed by Liddell for large portions of hen wings, an merchandise that was by no means served to college students as a result of they include bones,” prosecutors defined.
Lindell pleaded responsible on August 9 and was handed a nine-year jail sentence.
