Illinois School Worker Pleads Guilty to Stealing $1.5 Million Worth of Chicken Wings
She received a 9-year sentence.
Vera Liddell, the former food service director for Harvey District 152 near Chicago, pled guilty to stealing $1.5 million of food, mostly chicken wings.
I wrote about this in January 2023.
Liddell got a 9-year sentence:
Cook County prosecutors accused her of stealing massive amounts of food meant for take-home meals for students learning remotely during the pandemic.
The Cook County State’s Attorney tells WGN Investigates that Liddell entered a guilty plea Friday and received a 9-year prison sentence.
Liddell started stealing food in 2020. She continued for 19 months.
She ordered food from Gordon Food Services and billed the school district.
The school district discovered Liddell’s scheme last year during an audit, which showed it “exceeded its annual budget by $300,000.”
The school district doesn’t order chicken wings because of certain bones in them.
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Comments
Wow. That’s a LOT of wings. Did she get the sauce on the side?
I’m winging it a bit here, but I think she had a bone to pick with the system and was too chicken to talk to them directly about it.
Oh, . . . that sounds fowl!
The wholesale price for wings was over $4 during Peak Covid. Assuming the highest price (but it was likely appreciably lower), where does one keep 375K-lbs of chicken wings? I mean, by any measure, that is a LOT of chicken wings. For some perspective, a refrigerated 40′ trailer can only hold 45K-lbs (a little less). This also speaks directly to the criminally negligent financial controls that are prevalent at all levels of government bureaucracy.
Lots of chicken restaurants in the Chicago area. Another article indicated that she’d pick them up in the school van. I suspect that she had some “customers” who were happy to pay, let’s say, $2.50 a pound for those wings. Every dollar she gets is pure profit. The restaurant gets a big discount. Win win. Except for the school district. Sounds like she got a little too successful and greedy. I’m actually surprised that she was charged with a felony since it was a property crime in Cook County. Guess she wasn’t kicking back to the right people. Nice thing about a guilty plea is that you don’t have to have any inconvenient testimony about who all was involved.
Good grief was that the street value of the wings? Maybe she had a side wing business out of her home. So I’m curious how that home meal thing worked. Couldn’t go to school in person, but they could pick up their lunches in person.
“IBI agents stopped a truckload of illegal chickens on Lake Shore Drive. The estimate street value of the chickens…”
Where I live the parents would drive to the school and be given packed lunches for all their children without getting out of the car.
Obviously a great miscarriage of justice here. If she had a market for 300k lbs of wings I think we should grant her clemency and set her up with a sports bar. The recipe must be amazing!
An enterprising businesswoman and entrepreneur “of color” is being unjustly prosecuted for starting a small business and bringing much-needed jobs to the ‘hood.
There’s money in them thar wings!
Actually, I would imagine that these “wings” were mere accounting widgets, and never actually existed.
“You invoice me for wings but don’t deliver them. The invoice will direct payment to go to an account that -looks like yours- which I control. From that account I will pay you ?20%? of the listed price, in checks made out to cash, merely for performing this paper exercise. I’ll pocket the other 80% and Uncle Sam’s yer uncle!
Agree…but she doesn’t appear to be the mastermind of that scam..
You agree that a huge, respected food services company with 16,000 employees is involved in a petty scam ($1.5 mill would be a rounding error) and would risk criminal prosecution for fraud and tax evasion in order to conspire with an ignorant, minority school employee? Why, you’re just brilliant.
Even the huge, respected School District had a corrupt ‘ee so why wouldn’t a company with MANY MORE thousands have a few corrupts?? I’ve seen it happen in a small business when the WRONG people are making PURCHASES and have the AUTHORITY to APPROVE DELIVERIES and PAYMENTS! You must never have worked in any job that involves people being people!
“Huge, respected food services companies” have hundreds of local offices. All it takes is one crooked clerk, just like in a huge, respected bank
Never would have thought of something so clever! Steal nothing, but bill for everything, and split the profits. Wow! Everyone wins except the hungry kids. I guess they don’t matter.
My grandfather ran something like this in the USSR during Stalin’s reign. He ran a knitwear collective; the workers all had knitting machines at home and would produce clothes, which would be collected and were supposed to be sold to a store. On paper the store manager recorded receipt of the goods, paid my grandfather the official wholesale price, and he paid all the workers the official wage. The store immediately recorded that the entire stock had sold out, and banked the official retail price in the store’s account. In reality the entire stock was sold on the black market, the store manager got a cut, and the rest was divided equally between the workers.
And that was how you survived in the USSR, at a time when the official wage was 300 rubles a month, and a loaf of bread on the black market cost 100 rubles.
The wings were all delivered to Gabourey Sidibe.
That
iswas a lot of wings.They should feed her ONLY those wings for the entire 9-year sentence.
One hell of a Super Bowl party
screamed racism!!
you are saying that poc eat chicken!!!!!!
Given her “experience”, I’ll bet she’s assigned to the KITCHEN and put in charge of Food Procurement!!
So was ANY of the money recovered? Great and now we get to spend another $450,000 to keep her in Prison.