Stiff penalty urged for stealing from charter school

Prosecutors are demanding a harsh punishment for a former top school administrator who has admitted to plundering hundreds of thousands of dollars from D.C. charter schools.

Brenda Belton used her position as executive director of the Board of Education charter schools to siphon off money for herself, her friends and her family, according to her guilty plea earlier this year. Now, prosecutors want her to do hard time. In a sentencing recommendation filed late Wednesday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy G. Lynch called Belton “a worm in a rotten apple,” whose “corruption eats away at the core in our faith in government.”