A former Illinois public school food service director has been sentenced to nine years in prison for pulling off a $1.5 million chicken wing heist, prosecutors said.
Vera Liddell worked for Harvey School District 152, an “impoverished” Chicago-area district, for over a decade until she was accused of stealing the food she was tasked with providing to children in January 2023, WGN reported.
Court records obtained by the outlet accused the 66-year-old of placing orders for more than 11,000 cases of chicken wings from the school district’s food provider, picking them up in a district van, and not delivering them to children who were remote-learning at the time.
It is unclear what happened to the thousands of wings — but they were never served to the students.
Liddell’s web of lies was not uncovered until the school district’s business manager discovered that they had surpassed their annual food service budget by $300,000 just halfway through the school year, Cook County authorities said.
“[The business manager] discovered individual invoices signed by Liddell for massive quantities of chicken wings, an item that was never served to students because they contain bones,” court documents said.
Gordon Food Service, the district’s food provider, was said to have been very familiar with Liddell “due to the massive amount of chicken wings she would purchase.”
“The massive fraud began at the height of COVID during a time when students were not allowed to be physically present in school,” a proffer from Liddell’s 2023 bond hearing stated. “Even though the children were learning remotely, the school district continued to provide meals for the students that their families could pick up.”
The district has about 1,600 students enrolled in it, with more than 80 percent qualifying as “low income.”
Liddell pleaded guilty on Friday and was handed a nine-year prison sentence, the Cook County State’s Attorney told WGN.
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