Las Vegas, NV (KTNV) -- A man at the center of a Contact 13 investigation is facing charges that he defrauded the state and stole $1.3 million tax dollars all under the guise of education.
For nearly half a decade, Escambia Charter School hired out a group of students to cut roadside grass and weeds during class time for about 32 hours per week.
The privately run high school made about $200,000 by paying the children less than required under a state Department of Transportation contract. Meanwhile, it continued accepting tax money from the state Department of Education to teach the children five hours a day.
Until state prosecutors investigated complaints from teachers at the campus north of Pensacola, the falsifying of attendance records, course schedules and grade reports went unchecked.
Even after pleading no contest to grand theft, the school remains open. No more than 12 percent of its students have ever been able to read at grade level, test scores show…
The student work crews started at Escambia Charter in 1999. Stan Callender, the school's chief executive officer, signed a $250,000 contract with the Transportation Department to tend roadside grass and weeds in Escambia and Santa Rosa counties.Callender and Principal Jerome Chisolm devised a plan that called for a group of students to work eight hours per day, Monday through Thursday, for up to 15ƒ|weeks during school hours, according to state investigators.
The contract paid $16.25 for each hour a teen worked. The school, however, gave the students only $10 an hour, prosecutors said.
That meant the school collected about $40,000 a year from the student labor.
The administrators presented the program to charter-board members and county school-district officials as on-the-job training, investigators said.
Each week, however, Escambia sent false attendance records to the school district showing students were in class, investigators found. Report cards falsely showed that the work-crew members completed the courses…
State investigators amassed enough evidence to charge Escambia with one count of organized fraud, a felony, in April 2004.
Thomas said the criminal charge helped him negotiate an end to the student-labor abuses. The road crews were restructured into proper on-the-job training programs. Students attended class the required five hours per day. Grade and attendance reports were no longer falsified.
But Callender, whom state investigators identified as the mastermind of the scheme, remained in charge at the school. Thomas said there was little he could do, because charter governing boards have authority over staff matters…
Jun. 3--The founder of a Philadelphia charter school and her sister, both of whom had pleaded guilty to covering up the theft of more than $14,000 in taxpayer funds, were spared time in federal prison yesterday.Martha Russell, founder of the former Raising Horizons Quest Charter School, and Viola Bush, the former chief financial officer, were sentenced to five years' probation.U.S. District Judge Petrese B. Tucker ordered the women to make restitution of a total of $24,282, placed them on house arrest for six months, and directed them to perform 250 hours of community service…Both women yesterday apologized for their behavior. Russell said she had opened the charter school in 2000 with every intention to do well by the children. "There is no explanation for this foolish act," she said…
Two former charter school administrators pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court yesterday to charges of conspiracy and altering documents in 2006 to cover up their use of more than $14,000 in taxpayer money for personal expenses, including restaurants, gasoline, travel and alcohol.Martha Russell, the founder and former chief executive of the Raising Horizons Quest Charter School, and her sister, Viola J. Bush, the former finance officer, were indicted by a federal grand jury in April for falsifying credit-card statements to obstruct a Philadelphia School District audit of the school.The case predates a widening federal criminal probe of city charter schools that was launched in the spring after The Inquirer disclosed that the district's inspector general was investigating allegations of misuse of funds, nepotism, and conflicts of interest at Philadelphia Academy Charter School in the Northeast.The inspector general began investigating Raising Horizons Quest and ordered an audit in 2006 after former employees alleged that public funds were being misappropriated at the charter elementary school, which has campuses in Northeast and West Philadelphia.The district forwarded its findings to the U.S. Department of Education to investigate.The school - now known as the Global Leadership Academy - receives more than $100,000 in federal funds each year. In all, the charter received $4.9 million from the school district and state and federal governments in 2005-06, according to its nonprofit tax filing.In June 2006, the district forced all but one of the charter's board members to resign, along with Russell and Bush. A new administrative team was brought in to take over the school, which Russell had founded in 2000. The school currently has 525 students from kindergarten through eighth grade.The grand jury charged that Russell and Bush took billing statements to Russell's home in Blue Bell and altered them by removing personal expenses and inserting "purported charges for business-related expenses."Russell then faxed the doctored documents to a coworker at the school "and instructed her to obscure the fax line on the altered statements and provide them to the Philadelphia School District auditor," the grand jury said.Russell, 53, and Bush, 50, of Lansdale, initially pleaded not guilty to the felony charges.But in a hearing before U.S. District Judge Petrese B. Tucker yesterday, the sisters changed their pleas and admitted committing the crimes.Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Morgan-Kelly said the evidence showed the women had misused more than $14,000 on personal expenses and then conspired to alter the documents to cover it up.In their plea agreement, Russell and Bush pledged to make restitution of $23,021. Bush also promised to return an additional $1,262.The women face possible maximum sentences of 25 years in prison, although federal sentencing guidelines suggest a range of 10 to 16 months. They also face three years of supervision and $500,000 fines.Tucker set their sentencing for Jan. 26.Both Russell and Bush declined to comment.Russell and Bush are not the first Philadelphia charter administrators charged with federal crimes.Curtis Andrews, chief executive of the now-defunct Center for Economics and Law Charter School in Southwest Philadelphia, was sentenced in 2006 to 33 months in federal prison for defrauding the school district of $206,554 by devising a scheme to inflate student enrollment. He agreed to make full restitution as part of his guilty plea.
PHILADELPHIA - Martha Russell, 52, of Blue Bell, PA, and Viola Bush, 49, of Lansdale, PA, pleaded guilty today to conspiracy and alteration of records with the intent to impede the proper administration of a matter within the jurisdiction of the U.S. Department of Justice. Russell was the Chief Executive Officer of Raising Horizons Quest Charter School. Bush is Russell’s sister and was Chief Financial Officer of the school. From 2003 to 2005, the two defendants stole funds intended for the school and later attempted to hide their unlawful activities while being audited by the Philadelphia School District in January 2006.The defendants each face an advisory guidelines sentencing range of 10 to 16 months in prison when sentenced on January 26, 2009.This case was investigated by the United States Department of Education and is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Michelle Morgan-Kelly.
