Chicago Public Schools chief pleads guilty to one count of wire fraud
Updated: Barbara Byrd-Bennett, who until June 2015 served as CEO of Chicago Public Schools, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud Tuesday, the Chicago Tribune reports.
The announcement follows her indictment, released last week, for multiple counts of wire and mail fraud involving allegations that she took bribes for awarding contracts.
“The people of Chicago as well as CPS, its teachers, staff,and—most especially, its students—deserved more and better from me,” Byrd said in a statement released by Skadden Arps, the law firm representing her.
“There is nobody to blame but me, and my failings could not have come at a time of greater challenges for CPS,” she said. “The issues CPS faces are significant, and the city needs—and the children deserve—leaders who are working without conflicts of interest.”
Gary Solomon and Thomas Vranas, who own the educational consulting firms SUPES and Synesi Associates, were also named in the Oct. 8 indictment. They face fraud charges and will be charged with bribery and conspiracy to defraud the government, and the Tribune reports they will be arraigned at 2 p.m. Wednesday. Byrd-Bennett did consulting for the businesses before she was appointed to the position of CEO of the CPS by the city’s Democratic mayor Rahm Emanuel in October 2012. The Tribune reports that it was Solomon who recommended her to Emanuel for the position. According to the indictment, while leading the country’s third-largest district, Byrd-Bennett sent more than $23 million in business to the firms through no-bid contracts.
In exchange, Byrd-Bennett expected “hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes and kickbacks,” according to a press release from the Northern District of Illinois’ U.S. Attorney’s Office. She asked that some of the money be placed in trust funds for two relatives, and she was also set to receive a significant signing bonus with one of the consulting firms when she left CPS.
“I have tuition to pay and casinos to visit (: ” she wrote in an email to Solomon, according to the indictment.
The inspector general for the Chicago Board of Education began an investigation into the propriety of one of the contracts awarded to SUPES under Byrd-Bennett in the summer of 2013, within months of her beginning her CPS job. That contract was for $20.5 million to provide training for principals. Shortly afterward, Solomon reportedly told Byrd-Bennett that the Chicago Board of Education wanted to review his and Vranas’ emails. According to the indictment, Solomon wrote to Byrd-Bennett that he and Vranas would use a computer program to delete the emails, and she should do the same.
The Chicago Tribune reported in April 2015 that after news of the investigation broke, Byrd-Bennett took a leave of absence, and the acting CEO Jesse Ruiz halted payments to SUPES on the $20.5 million contract, but not before the district had paid about $12.4 million toward it.
Byrd-Bennett is represented by Michael Scudder, a partner with the Chicago office of Skadden Arps. His client is “accepting full responsibility for her conduct,” and she intends to cooperate with the government, including “testifying truthfully if called upon to do so,” Scudder wrote in a statement last week, according to the New York Times.
Tony Masciopinto, who represents Solomon, said in a statement Friday that his client is disappointed by the charges but cooperating with authorities, Crain’s Chicago Business reports.
Vranas is represented by Michael D. Monico.
“Tom Vranas is a young man who has done a lot of good things in his life,” Monico told Crains. “He looks forward to resolving this case and getting on with his life.”
The Chicago Sun Times reports that in the past year, CPS requested and received a spending extension of $400,000 to pay legal fees for three of Byrd Bennett’s former aides.They’re represented by Ron Safer, a Schiff Hardin partner and former chief of the criminal division of the Northern District of Illinois U.S. Attorney’s Office who represents the aides. The Sun-Times said that Schiff Hardin charges the school district a reduced fee of $295 for an hour for the work of Safer and fellow Schiff Hardin partner Matt Crowl.
The school district would not say if Schiff Hardin’s retention was related to the indictment, the Sun Times reports. A CPS spokesman did tell the paper that they had a statuary obligation to cover employee legal expenses that resulted from work within the scope of their employment.
Updated Oct. 13 to add information related to Byrd-Bennett’s plea.
