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Here is a story that makes me warm and fuzzy inside. I hope Loog and Derris have been folowing this one. I hate this Republican bitch. When I was in high school at the Governor's Honors Program she came out publicly against it saying it was not a good use of funds. Then this hypocritical bitch came down and met with all the students in attendance. I guess she wanted the money to get a facelift. HOW DID SHE EVER THINK SHE WOULD GET AWAY WITH THIS!!!!
Dozens of bogus checks in scheme
Ex-school chief Linda Schrenko accused in elaborate skimming of funds
By JAMES SALZER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 11/11/04
Prosecutors say former Georgia School Superintendent Linda Schrenko and associates employed South African and family bank accounts, envelopes full of cash and more than a hundred $590 checks in a scheme to steal more than $500,000 in federal education funds.
Schrenko, chief deputy Merle Temple Jr. and Alpharetta computer consultant A. Stephan Botes have been charged in an 18-count federal indictment with conspiracy, wire fraud and theft of public funds.
Conviction on the most serious counts could bring up to 30 years in prison, officials said.
About half the money cited in the indictment was funneled to Schrenko's failed Republican primary campaign for governor in 2002, but $9,300 went for cosmetic surgery, the government said. Schrenko had a face-lift around the time of the election.
Lawyers for the accused said their clients would be exonerated.
The criminal charges disclosed Wednesday stem from the alleged misuse of federal money earmarked for computer services at two Georgia schools for deaf children and the Governor's Honors Program.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Russell Vineyard called the scheme "a rather blatant theft of federal funds."'
The government says Schrenko, a Republican who served as elected school superintendent from 1995 through 2003, directed the state Education Department to issue 11 checks, ranging from $45,000 to $49,900, to companies controlled by Botes. Expenditures of $50,000 or more would have had to be approved by the state Board of Education, which often had feuded with Schrenko over politics and her handling of the agency.
The indictment does not make clear how much of the money the government suspects remained with Botes or his companies. It also does not say how the three defendants came to know each other.
A Botes company executive told the Journal-Constitution in 2002 that his company sought out Schrenko because it was developing a new educational product.
The indictment claims much of the money the company received was funneled back to Schrenko, Temple or the superintendent's election campaign through transfers from foreign bank accounts or from Botes and his companies.
In one instance, the government says, Temple met Botes and another company official for breakfast at an Atlanta hotel, and the Schrenko aide left with an envelope filled with $32,000 in cash.
More than 100 checks were cut by Botes' company for $590 each with the notation that they were to be paid for "focus group honoraria." The indictment says the checks were delivered to Temple. The checks subsequently were issued to unidentified individuals who cashed them and used a portion of the proceeds to make contributions to Schrenko's election campaign, the government says.
Shell corporations, with bank accounts, were set up to handle the federal funds flowing to Botes, the indictment says.
When a state audit began to look at the expenditures, the conspirators created backdated contracts to cover more than $500,000 in Department of Education payments made to Botes' companies, the government says.
Cathy Henson, who was chairwoman of the state Board of Education at the time, said Thursday that board members had asked auditors to look into the department's use of federal funds in November 2001, more than six months before the incidents mentioned in the indictment were alleged to have taken place.
"The audit was being conducted while she was walking in and taking out more money," Henson said.
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I'm not a businessman, I'm a business..........man.
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