Detroit schools supplier gets 5 years in prison for fraud

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Detroit schools supplier gets 5 years in prison for fraud

Updated 5:02 pm, Tuesday, September 6, 2016



Photo: Todd McInturf, AP

Former Detroit Public Schools (DPS) vendor Norman Shy, center, walks into the federal court building for sentencing related to his part in the DPS billing scandal, Tuesday, Sept. 6, 2016. Shy, who sold supplies to the Detroit school district was sentenced to five years in prison Tuesday in a bribery and kickback scheme involving a dozen principals and one administrator. (Todd McInturf/The Detroit News via AP)




DETROIT (AP) — A 74-year-old businessman who sold supplies to the Detroit school district was sentenced to five years in prison Tuesday in a bribery and kickback scheme involving a dozen principals and one administrator.

Norman Shy told U.S. District Judge Victoria Roberts that he "made a horrible mistake" and accepts "full responsibility" in a scheme that defrauded the financially struggling district and its students out of $2.7 million. The government says Shy paid out about $900,000 in kickbacks.

"There are no words to express how horrible I feel and how embarrassed and ashamed I am," Shy said in court.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/crime/article/School-district-vendor-gets-5-years-in-prison-in-9205284.php

[marble falls]

1. So when is the embarrassed, ashamed and horrible Mr Shy paying all that moolaloo back to the ....

children of Detroit?`

[ancianita]

2. All suppliers must be investigated for kickbacks on the backs of America's children.

Last edited Tue Sep 6, 2016, 08:50 PM - Edit history (1)

I get that it can be a common practice with suppliers from the school level to the board level.

Every school district can keep two sets of books, bookkeepers.
Forensic audits can reveal that. Boards never allow forensic audits.

This country has been great for its children, and it can be again.

Every community must demand better spending of their taxes again. Mass hiring of accountants seems in order.

It's our children. It's our money.

[JonathanRackham]

3. Who are the people getting the kickbacks? Have they been prosecuted as well?

Dig deeper. Think restitution.

[ancianita]

4. You're just scratching the surface yourself. First, kickbacks are oral agreements.

There's no written fine print to nail kickback recipients with. So witnesses and individuals' salaries and bank accounts have to be examined. But how are witnesses to be deposed, and how are accounts to be accessed
, since there are privacy laws.

Second, just who is willing to whisteblow. To call for an audit. How can the powerful be prosecuted when no one employee is willing to be called a liar, get demoted, lose their job over their unbelieved claims; and all the while they have to work at pursuing a lawsuit that costs money in getting people in power -- judges, mayors, general superintendents -- to order audits.

Third, people within the systems who do have the actual authority to call a forensic audit, you know, the "dig deeper" part -- mayors, general superintendents -- know that they are inviting the results and bad news that will mean their resignations. Because they might find some who have contract-making power

When you're dealing with huge systems, not only is case building difficult, restitution for the system's children is a long, long way off because proof of damage to them has to be compiled -- which we all know it can't. The only restitution is totally changed, monitored contract approvals, conflict of interest statements, etc., and complete return of all lost money to the school system coffers.