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From her position as food service director for Harvey School District 152, Vera Liddell, 68, would star in one of the biggest culinary heists of the year: $1.5 million worth of chicken wings between July 2020 and February 2022. She pleaded guilty before being sentenced to 9 years in prison.
How was the theft discovered? The school system realized that it had run wildly over its original budget; that food costs had reached $300,000 over that budget, thus conducting an audit that would eventually uncover Liddell’s case.
The former Illinois school worker would steal 11,000 boxes of wings worth $1.5 million, which were intended for students during the height of the COVID pandemic, prosecutors have testified.
His procedure was as follows: he used a school cargo van to pick up the food. A strategy that would never be discovered by students or school workers. Even when schools were closed, the district near Chicago continued to send meal kits to students in remote locations during the pandemic period.