Alex Murdaugh leaves court
Alex Murdaugh is transported back to a van after day 5 of his murder trial. (Mark Sims for Fox News Digital)
The Illinois woman accused of stealing $1.5 million worth of food, mostly chicken wings, over nearly two years from a school district was busted after an audit revealed the district was hundreds of thousands of dollars over budget at even though he was only halfway through the school year, according to court documents.
Vera Liddell, 66, allegedly placed hundreds of unauthorized food orders with Gordon Food Service, the primary food supplier for Harvey School District 152. The scheme ran from July 2020 to February 2022, during the COVID-19 pandemic, prosecutors said.
She is charged with felony robbery and continuing a financial crime enterprise, prosecutors said, reported FOX Chicago.
Liddell allegedly placed the orders, including 11,000 boxes of chicken wings, separately from the district’s legitimate orders. The food service providers then billed the district, which made the payments.
1 DEAD, 6 INJURED IN CHICAGO HIGH-RISE FIRE
Vera Liddell is accused of stealing $1.5 million from an Illinois school district by stealing $1.5 million worth of food, primarily chicken wings.
(Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office)
“The massive fraud began at the height of COVID during a time when students were not allowed to be physically present at school,” the court documents say. “Although the children were learning remotely, the school district continued to provide meals for the students that their families could pick up.”
Liddell was hired as a consultant after her time as food services director in 2021 to help with the transition of a new director, prosecutors said. After placing the fraudulent orders, she allegedly would pick up the food in a school district cargo van.
“The food was never brought to the school or provided to the students,” prosecutors said in court documents.
The scheme was uncovered when a manager conducted a routine mid-year audit and found that the district had exceeded its annual budget by more than $300,000 even though it was only halfway through the school year.
Prosecutors said Liddell was the only person responsible for placing food orders on behalf of the district.
The popularity of Buffalo wings has only spread over the decades, and Americans now consume an estimated 27 billion wings per year, according to the National Chicken Council.
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“Upon closer review, he discovered individual bills signed by Liddell for massive amounts of chicken wings, an item that was never served to students because they contained bones,” the documents say.
Gordon Food Service employees told investigators they were all familiar with Liddell because of the “enormous amount of chicken wings he bought,” prosecutors said.
