A cafeteria worker from Chicago is facing a harsh prison sentence of 9 years for quite an unusual heist: $1.5 million ( Rs. 12 crore) worth of chicken wings. Vera Liddell, the supervisor of food services for Harvey School District 152, was found guilty of theft and operating a criminal scheme. She could get nine years in prison. According to reports, during the pandemic, while students were learning remotely Liddell is said to have ordered over 11,000 cases of chicken wings between August and November 2021 using the school district’s cargo van. These food items never got to the students.
Mid-year routine audits of the district’s budget overspent its annual food budget by almost $300,000. Interim Superintendent Lela Bridges said Liddell had only been at the district for a week when the theft was brought to light. Surveillance footage showed her arriving at the store before it opened to collect her orders. Now, Liddell is being held at Cook County Jail on a $150,000 bond nearly ₹1 crore as announced by the authorities.
A school worker has been jailed for nine years after stealing $1.5m (£1.18m) worth of chicken wings
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The scheme came to light after the COVID-19 pandemic when students were remote learning, yet school districts continued delivering meals to be picked up. Again, the food never arrived at the school, nor on the hands and in the mouths of the students it was intended to reach. Prosecutors say that invoices, signed by Liddell, included chicken wings in large quantities—a food not appropriate for the remote delivery of meal’s program.
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Chicken Wings Heist
State prosecutors explained that the widespread scheme began at the height of the COVID pandemic when students weren’t in school physically.
Though kids were learning virtually, the school district continued providing meals to pick up. That food, however, was never delivered to the school, let alone given to the kids. Prosecutors discovered invoices signed by Liddell for large quantities of chicken wings, an item unsuitable for the meal program since they had bones. Court documents indicate that employees of Gordon Food Service, the district’s food vendor, became suspicious when Vera Liddell placed large orders for chicken wings. It is not clear what happened to the food, but the court referred to it as ‘massive fraud.’ The district contains five schools with about 1,600 students, and more than 80 percent of them come from low-income families.
