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.”
“Dr. Belton was given the honors and privileges of public office and the comforts of a good salary with benefits,” Lynch wrote in the memorandum to U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina. “Yet she stole educational opportunities from young, predominately African-American boys and girls, the vast majority of whom were at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder.”
Belton, 61, pleaded guilty to corruption and tax evasion charges in August, admitting that she used a series of companies to shuffle money to herself, her friends and her family. Under U.S. sentencing guidelines, she could be put in prison for more than three years when she is sentenced next month.
Her lawyer, Vincent Cohen Jr., did not respond to requests for comment.
The sentencing memorandum asks Urbina to sentence Belton to “the high end” of the guidelines. “What is so tragic here,” Lynch wrote, is that “the needs of the children in Dr. Belton’s charter schools were and are so overwhelming.”
Lynch’s memo lays out the abysmal test scores in some of the schools Belton was supposed to be monitoring, including Young America Public Works. Belton gave Young America’s charter to her lifelong friend, Brenda Williams, after Belton and another man set up a front company that “rented” the land to Young America. Williams is referred to as “Participant One” in court papers and is accused of paying kickbacks to Belton after Belton gave her a no-bid monitoring contract. Williams has not been formally charged with any crime.
Eighty-six percent of Young America’s students were failing in math in 2006, Lynch noted. “There can be no doubt that each and every child at one of Dr. Belton’s public charter schools was directly harmed by her corruption,” he wrote.
At a glance
Brenda Belton admitted to stealing $383,000 from charter schools. The money might have pair for:
» 17 new teachers
» 17,000 schoolbooks or DVDs
» “Thousands of hours” of teacher training
Source: U.S. Attorney’s sentencing memo
Got a tip on the city schools? Call Bill Myers at 202-459-4956 or e-mail [email protected].
