Chicago Lunch Lady Sentenced To 9 Years For Stealing 1.5 Million Worth Of Chicken Wings!

" A former employee of a school district in Illinois has pleaded guilty to stealing $1.5 million worth of chicken wings from the district’s food service.

According to a report from WGN, Vera Liddell was arrested in January 2023 and pleaded guilty Friday.

She was sentenced to nine years in prison.

Liddell, 68, was the food service director for Harvey School District 152 near Chicago for more than a decade, WGN reported.

The crimes took place during the COVID pandemic when students were not allowed to be physically present at school. During this time, the district continued to provide meals for students that their parents could pick up.

Court records show that Liddell ordered more than 11,000 cases of chicken wings from the school district’s food provider and picked up the order in a district cargo van.

The food was never brought to the school or given to students, records show.

District funds were used to pay for the chicken wings, according to prosecutors.

A report from WLS said the orders were placed over a 19-month period from July 2020 to February 2022.

According to WGN, the scheme was discovered by the district’s business manager in January 2023 during a routine mid-year audit. The manager found the district was $300,000 over its annual food service budget, despite only being halfway through the school year.

The business manager also found it highly suspicious that chicken wings were ordered in the first place, since they are never served to students because they contain bones, prosecutors said.

It’s unclear what Liddell did with $1.5 million worth of wings.

She is currently being held at the Cook County Jail on 150,000 Dollar Bond." - Chicago News |