Ex-head of Chicago Public Schools expected to plead guilty

Barbara Byrd-Bennett, who ran the national 3rd largest school district for almost three years, entered her plea in federal court in Chicago. Yes, Ms. Byrd-Bennett, they certainly do.

She also had a message for the children.

“I am terribly sorry, and I apologize to them”, the paper quoted her as saying.

She then stepped through the crowd of spectators and left the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse without taking questions. Byrd-Bennett faces a reduced prison sentence of seven-and-a-half years and will be sentenced at a later date. She received kickbacks in return.

Byrd-Bennett will plead guilty to the charges in the indictment, said her lawyer, Michael Scudder. Soon after, Byrd-Bennett took a paid leave of absence and then resigned in May. Appearing tense and her voice subdued, Byrd-Bennett stood unmoving before the judge, answering questions with: “Yes, your honor. ”Mayor Rahm Emanuel hired Byrd-Bennett as CEO in 2012.

In exchange, she was promised a consulting job at SUPES Academy after she retired from the Chicago school district, along with a “signing bonus”. The judge then asked her how she meant to plead to the one count.

A document explains what his private company did, during the CPS school closing deal, including “managing and processing the active business and financial records during the consolidation of the closed Chicago Public Schools” and “collecting, processing, sorting, batching, packing, annotating boxes … shipping student records”. On Tuesday, she is scheduled to be arraigned.

Under Byrd’s leadership the SUPES academy, her former employer, was given $23 million dollars in no-bid contracts. Many believe that since the mayor appointed Byrd-Bennett and the school board that approved that SUPES contract, he should share a few of the blame. Six months later, she was elevated by Emanuel to CEO.

“If you only join for the day, you will be the highest paid person on the planet for that day,”, one of the executives wrote in an email to Byrd-Bennett about the bonus, according to the Associated Press.

The former chief of the Chicago Public Schools pled guilty Tuesday to accepting kickbacks and faces several years in prison. Before coming to Chicago, Byrd-Bennett had been a district administrator in Detroit, Cleveland, and New York City.

Though the plea agreement says that other charged co-conspirators in the case told Byrd-Bennett that money had been placed into accounts for “Relative A” and “Relative B”, that money never made it to Byrd-Bennett or the relatives.

The federal probe of the alleged scheme found no evidence that money changed hands while Byrd-Bennett served as CEO. Supes and Synesi also allegedly gave Byrd-Bennett meals, an airplane ticket and tickets for sporting events, according to the indictment.