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In federal court in downtown Detroit, it's deal time in one of the more shameful, high-profile cases to come along in recent times.
Tresa Baldas of the Detroit Free Press reports that nine Detroit Public Schools principals, one administrator and a private vendor at the center of it all, have cut deals and are scheduled to plead guilty.
Plea deals will start on Thursday and spill into May.
In all, 14 have been charged in the case, which means three, to date, have not cut deals.
Wayne State University Law Professor Peter Henning, a former federal prosecutor, tells the Free Press he expects the defendants to get prison time and pay restitution.
"This is corruption in the school system. That's about as bad as it gets," Henning said. "Frankly, judges – especially in this district – do not go light on corruption."
Authorities have alleged that vendor Norman Shy, 74, of Franklin, paid bribes and kickbacks to the school officials, using a portion of the payments he received from DPS from the fraudulent invoices for items such as chairs, supplemental teaching materials and raised line paper.
In all, Shy allegedly paid 13 school officials about $908,518 in kickbacks and bribes. In exchange, Shy and his company received approximately $2.7 million from the school system for the fraudulent invoices. The feds alleged that the scam ran from 2002-15 while he lived lavishly.
