One of the co-owners of SUPES Academy has pled guilty in CPS bribery scandal.
One of the co-owners of SUPES Academy has pled guilty in CPS bribery scandal.
A SUPES Academy co-owner pled guilty to a bribery charge on Tuesday in a lawsuit that took down the former head of Chicago Public Schools (CPS).
Thomas Vranas, one of the defendants at the heart of the bribery scandal involving former Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett, is the second figure to enter a plea deal with prosecutors in the case. Vranas pled guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit federal program bribery in a federal court and faces up to five years in prison. He is reportedly cooperating with prosecutors.
Vranas, along with SUPES co-owner Gary Solomon, are accused of agreeing to pay Byrd-Bennett hundreds of thousands of dollars in bribes to funnel lucrative no-bid contracts to their education firm. Byrd-Bennett resigned in June after word of an investigation spread.
“It was part of the scheme that defendant Barbara Byrd-Bennett solicited and agreed to accept bribes and kickbacks in the form of personal benefits from and future employment with defendants Gary Solomon, Thomas Vranas and the SUPES Entities, in exchange for acts in Byrd-Bennett’s official CPS capacity that were designed to promote and bring about the awarding of CPS contracts to the SUPES Entities,” court documents stated.
Last October, both Vranas and Solomon pled not guilty to multiple counts of wire and mail fraud, and Byrd-Bennett pled guilty to a single federal count of wire fraud.
Byrd-Bennett’s sentencing has been postponed until a resolution is reached in the charges against Vranas and Solomon. She faces up to about 7.5 years behind bars, considerably less than the 14 years proposed under federal sentencing guidelines.
The Chicago board of education is seeking more than $65 million in damages and penalties. According to the suit, during Byrd-Bennett’s tenure as CPS CEO, SUPES Academy and Synesi Associates won more than $23 million in no-bid contracts from CPS. In return, Solomon and Vranas made arrangements to pay Byrd-Bennett as much as $2.3 million in kickbacks and other benefits.
According to court documents, in April 2012, Solomon sent an email to Byrd-Bennett that read, in part:
“When this stint at CPS is done and you are ready to retire, we have your spot waiting for you -- hopefully, with even more work and more opt,” court documents stated. “In the meantime, if we can figure a way to do deep principal PD at CPS, I can find a good home for (friends of Byrd-Bennett’s) and others, and make sure principles in CPS get kick-ass training with kick-ass teacher and kick-ass coaching.”
In another email sent to Byrd-Bennett in September 2012, Solomon confirmed that trust accounts for two of Byrd-Bennett’s relatives had been set up and contained $147,000 each.
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