Education Department Watchdog: School Insiders Have Stolen Nearly $71 Million in Fraud Schemes
ICE Arrests 1,328 Criminal Aliens in Washington Suburbs in Two-Week Sweep
Education Department Watchdog: School Insiders Have Stolen Nearly $71 Million in Fraud Schemes
Fraud is costing America’s schools millions of dollars, and many of the perpetrators are not outsiders—they are the officials and employees entrusted with running the nation’s public education system. Our Corruption Chronicles blog has some shocking details:
As the state of public education in the U.S. sinks to a historic low with consistent declines in math and reading scores, those hired by local governments to run the nation’s failing elementary, middle and high school campuses commit tens of millions of dollars in fraud. They include state and district superintendents, high-ranking school officials and lower level staff as well as charter school administrators. In the last five years alone, the public servants charged with educating children have operated at least 130 fraudulent schemes that have robbed schools of nearly $71 million. A new audit released by the Department of Education Inspector General (IG) calls them “bad actors” who were mostly exposed via a hotline portal operated by the watchdog. The probe resulted in 98 criminal and civil cases, 74 suspensions and 13 administrative actions. “Individuals who commit K–12 fraud frequently operate within the school system itself,” according to the Education watchdog. “These perpetrators have included State Superintendents of Education, charter school leaders, district superintendents and other high-ranking school officials, and school employees at all levels, as well as school vendors.”
Created by Jimmy Carter in 1979, the Department of Education (ED) is legally responsible for administering more than 100 programs and distributing billions of dollars annually to state and local education agencies, schools, organizations, and other entities that support students nationwide. However, the report says criminals target these programs each year, including special education, vocational rehabilitation, and Title I funds for school districts serving low-income families. Investigators found that these “bad actors”—insiders at taxpayer-funded schools across the country—abuse ED programs and intentionally misuse or embezzle funds meant to help students, schools, and teachers. Detecting the fraud is especially difficult because K–12 funding is decentralized across thousands of independent school districts around the country. Most federal education funds flow to state education entities, which then distribute money to local agencies, school districts, and individual schools. “Federal dollars are often blended with State and local funds and tracked through localized bookkeeping practices—which makes oversight more complex,” the new report reveals.
Evidently, this is why the ED watchdog relies heavily on complaints from individuals within school systems. That means the problem is surely much worse than the cases documented in the recently published report, which covers fiscal years 2020 through 2025. Investigations fell primarily within five categories: charter school fraud, public corruption, illicit schemes involving programs authorized under a decades-old law (Elementary and Secondary Education Act—ESEA) to provide disadvantaged students with a quality education, tutoring and academic support program fraud as well as scams involving emergency relief programs. The cases involving charter schools, which are publicly funded with no oversight, include embezzlement, inflated student enrollment numbers, ghost students or staff and fake invoicing schemes. Public corruption cases, which include abuse of position by school officials or employees for personal gain, uncovered bribery and kickback schemes, irregularities in contract awards and criminal conflicts of interest.
Embezzlement, misuse of funds and false representation were the key offenses committed by public officials running school programs funded under ESEA, which delivers financial assistance to districts and campuses that serve children from low-income families. Only six percent of the stolen money has been recovered, however. Taxpayer-funded tutoring and academic support programs for primarily students in high-poverty, low-performing schools were also raided by crooked education officials who embezzled funds, filed false invoices and reported ghost students to collect more money. As for emergency relief, Congress provided billions of dollars in funding to help K-12 schools and districts nationwide meet the educational needs of students affected by hurricanes and wildfires and billions more during the coronavirus pandemic, making the broad cash giveaway an easy target for corrupt educators. The audit found that those crimes “predominately involved false claims, mismanagement, or misuse of funds.”
ICE Arrests 1,328 Criminal Aliens in Washington Suburbs in Two-Week Sweep
More than 1,300 illegal immigrants with criminal records—including murderers, rapists, kidnappers, arsonists, drug traffickers and members of violent transnational gangs—were arrested in a two-week federal crackdown across the Washington, D.C., suburbs of Virginia and Maryland. Our Corruption Chronicles blog has the details:
Illustrating once again how sanctuary policies endanger American communities by harboring criminal aliens, more than 1,300 illegal immigrants with serious criminal records have lived freely for an unknown period in two suburbs surrounding the nation’s capital. Even after getting arrested by local police, convicted or serving time for violent felonies, the foreign perpetrators were released by open border officials rather than turned over to federal authorities for removal. The offenders include murderers, rapists, kidnappers, arsonists, drug traffickers, and members of transnational criminal street gangs such as the famously violent Tren de Aragua, Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13) and 18th Street.
In a significant development unlikely to receive mainstream media coverage, a federal crackdown recently arrested the offenders—1,328 in all—in the Washington, D.C. suburbs of Virginia and Maryland. Conducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the two-week sweep, coined Operation Safe Community, comes on the heels of a similar roundup in Georgia that took more than 1,200 alien criminals off the streets. “When sanctuary politicians refuse to work with ICE, they force our officers to make these arrests at large in the communities–creating a more dangerous environment for our officers, the aliens we are arresting, and the general public,” said ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) Acting Assistant Director Patricia Hyde. “We could be using one or two officers to make a custodial arrest in the security of a jail cell; however, because sanctuary politicians refuse to cooperate, we have to expend time, manpower, and resources to arrest these aliens on the streets.”
This has long been a nationwide problem as local governments across the U.S. shield illegal immigrants—even those convicted of violent crimes—by refusing to participate in 287(g), a federal-local partnership that notifies ICE when inmates are in the country illegally so they can be deported rather than released into American communities. Less than a year ago, Judicial Watch reported that two sanctuary states alone, New York and Illinois, released nearly 9,000 criminal aliens from jails and prisons during a 10-month period, defying ICE detainers to remove them. Among the offenders protected by the sanctuary policies in the two states were murderers, terrorists, sexual predators, kidnappers, and serious drug offenders. A Turkish Known or Suspected Terrorist (KST) named Selman Cevik jailed for first degree menacing and harassment as well a rapist and two known gang members were let go by New York officials. Illinois released a Mexican man convicted of three counts of aggravated kidnapping/ransom and another convicted for predatory criminal sex assault of a child. It is not clear if any of the New York or Illinois criminal aliens have been apprehended by ICE since local officials released them.
In the recent Operation Safe Community hundreds of the criminal aliens roaming the capital area had convictions for major crimes in the U.S. and clearly benefitted from the protection of sanctuary policies in counties throughout Virginia and Maryland. Others had serious felony charges or were known members of violent street gangs. Without cooperation from local authorities, tracking them down required more federal resources as well as time. “Our officers are the best in the world at finding people who do not want to be located,” said Hyde, the ICE ERO assistant director. “That’s exactly what we did throughout the course of this operation. Removing these criminal alien offenders from Virginia and Maryland neighborhoods makes for much safer communities, and that is exactly what the men and women of ICE work to accomplish every day across our great nation.”
ICE, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), includes mug shots and a detailed criminal history of those apprehended in the recent operation surrounding the nation’s capital. Among them is German Mejia-Baires, a previously deported MS-13 gang member from El Salvador arrested for felony malicious wounding, driving while intoxicated and shoplifting. Haitian national Actionel Pierre, was free despite being wanted for attempted murder, two counts of assault, possession of a dangerous weapon with intent to injure, and reckless endangerment. Guatemalan Angel Gabriel Ortiz-Hernandez has a criminal history that includes rape of a mentally incapacitated victim and two counts of aggravated sexual battery of an incapacitated victim. Previously deported Jamaican Rowan Andrew Brown’s criminal history includes kidnapping, two counts of identity theft and fraud. Mexican Julio Hector Carranza-Rojano has charges for felony aggravated sexual battery, driving while intoxicated and leaving the scene of an accident.
Until next week,
