Barbara Byrd-Bennett
Barbara Byrd-Bennett was a high-ranking school official both in Chicago and Detroit. In both cities, it appears she had more than education on her mind.
Last month, Byrd-Bennett pleaded guilty to illegally steering $23 million in CPS contracts for The SUPES Academy and Synesi Associates, two north suburban education-consulting companies that employed her before she became Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s schools chief in 2012, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.
Now, Jon Seidel, Dan Mihalopoulos and Lauren FItzpatrick report that an FBI agent believes Barbara Byrd-Bennett worked to “fraudulently steer” a $40 million contract to one of the country’s biggest educational publishers while she worked for the Detroit schools as chief academic and accountability officer.
The Sun-Times reports:
The court documents obtained Monday also show federal law-enforcement authorities suspected two aides who later worked for CPS helped Byrd-Bennett to rig the bidding process in Detroit in favor of Boston-based Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.
The revelations appear in a March 2013 affidavit the FBI filed for a warrant to search Byrd-Bennett’s America Online email account. That’s the same personal account Byrd-Bennett allegedly used to work out the details of a kickback scheme at CPS.
