Warrant reveals just how hard Byrd-Bennett pushed for crooked deal

SHARE Warrant reveals just how hard Byrd-Bennett pushed for crooked deal

Byrd Bennett Email Warrant

Corrupt Chicago Public Schools CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett and one of her top aides allegedly overrode the strong objections of other CPS officials to steer tens of millions of dollars in district business to companies the two women worked for before getting hired here.

That’s according to a federal search warrant from September 2014, obtained Tuesday by the Chicago Sun-Times, that lays out how investigators uncovered the alleged kickback scheme involving more than $23 million in no-bid CPS contracts.

One CPS official who challenged the largest of the crooked deals — a $20.5 million contract in 2013 with The SUPES Academy, a north suburban consulting firm — said Byrd-Bennett told him “not to raise any more questions regarding this contract,” according to the newly unsealed court records.

Another school district official told investigators “she could not believe that anyone was considering awarding SUPES another contract,” because the firm’s earlier work for CPS was widely viewed as a failure.

Byrd-Bennett, 66, was Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s CPS CEO from 2012 until May. She pleaded guilty on Oct. 13 to a single count of wire fraud, admitting she rigged contracts for SUPES and a sister company, Synesi Associates, in anticipation of a 10 percent kickback. She could face more than seven years in prison and has vowed to cooperate with prosecutors.

Also charged in the case on multiple counts of fraud and bribery are the SUPES and Synesi owners, Gary Solomon and Thomas Vranas, who have pleaded not guilty.

The new court records provide the greatest detail yet on the behind-the-scenes machinations of Byrd-Bennett, who used a private AOL account to demand a cut of all the business she steered to SUPES and Synesi.

But Solomon and Vranas apparently were not always keen on the arrangement with Byrd-Bennett, according to the records. After Solomon forwarded emails between himself and Byrd-Bennett to his business partner, Vranas allegedly replied, “Everyone sucks and is greedy.”

In announcing the indictments on Oct. 8, federal prosecutors accused Byrd-Bennett of directing Solomon and Vranas to deposit some of the bribe money in accounts for her young twin grandsons, saying, “I have tuition to pay and casinos to visit (:”

And the FBI search warrant shows she had an even longer-term plan to help her only grandchildren. In July 2013, five days after the big SUPES contract was approved by the Chicago Board of Education, Byrd-Bennett wrote to Solomon: “Anything u can provide to me or a designated person relative to the future college and weddings for the boys might be helpful.”

The FBI agent who signed the search warrant last year, Steven W. Rausch, said Byrd-Bennett’s email to Solomon was a request for money “in exchange for the actions that she had taken to ensure” SUPES got the deal.

A few months earlier, the records show, Byrd-Bennett had hit up Solomon for four Chicago Bulls tickets for her grandsons and their parents. She asked Solomon: “Cost?”

“Zero,” Solomon replied.

“WOW!!! Thanks,” Byrd-Bennett wrote.

In the search warrant, the feds said Solomon had “advised” Byrd-Bennett as she negotiated her arrival to CPS in 2012.

Byrd-Bennett had worked for Solomon’s companies immediately before coming to Chicago, and he counseled her to “offer to take a leave from SUPES, to eliminate conflict,” according to the warrant. But he also allegedly told her to insist to Chicago officials that she would not take a job with the school district unless his companies could continue to be eligible for CPS business.

“I think this needs to be clear,” Solomon allegedly wrote.

Lawyers for Solomon and Vranas could not be reached for comment.

The search warrant also shows federal investigators searched the private emails of Tracy Martin, who was a SUPES vice president before Byrd-Bennett hired her to a high-level post overseeing struggling schools for CPS.

Court records show the FBI believed Martin “improperly influenced” a contracting process so Synesi could land a deal worth more than $800,000 in August 2013.

To buttress that claim, the feds cited an interview that the school district’s inspector general — who initiated the corruption probe and referred the case to the FBI — conducted with CPS official Liz Kirby.

Kirby told the inspector general Martin intervened and salvaged Synesi’s chances for the work after the firm had turned in a “poor proposal” that was rejected by other CPS officials.

Martin, who previously worked with Byrd-Bennett in Detroit and Cleveland, has not been charged with wrongdoing. She quit her $170,000-a-year job at CPS in June and did not return emails seeking comment Tuesday.

CPS initially agreed to pay for Martin’s lawyer in the case, but a district spokeswoman said it had stopped paying Martin’s legal bills.  

The search warrant details how two CPS officials tried in vain to oppose the $20.5 million, principal-training contract with SUPES.

Steve Gering, who oversaw principal training for CPS, questioned why the district did not put the deal out to bid instead of handing it to SUPES.

“Byrd-Bennett told him not to raise any questions regarding this contract… and to let the process continue,” wrote Rausch, the FBI agent in the case. “According to Gering, Byrd-Bennett made it clear to him that she wanted SUPES to have all of the leadership development contracts with CPS.”

Gering also questioned SUPES’ prices and asked Vranas if he could reduce costs.

“Vranas told him that unless SUPES started cutting services, there was no room for negotiation and the cost was the cost,” according to the search warrant.

Gering left the district weeks before the school board unanimously ratified the SUPES deal.

SUPES originally worked for the district through a privately-funded pilot program, but those funders declined Byrd-Bennett’s request to continue financing their work. That prompted Byrd-Bennett to seek board support to use taxpayer money for the 2013 deal with the consultants.

Kelly Bruno, a CPS procurement official, told investigators she was incredulous that CPS leaders wanted to give SUPES more work because “it was common knowledge that the program was not as successful as it should have been and that the sessions were very disorganized.”

Bruno told the schools’ inspector general that when she had contacted Solomon and Vranas to question their company’s pricing, Vranas “became very upset with her and questioned who she was and why she was calling.”

“Bruno said that Vranas told her he had written the pricing on the back of a napkin in a cab. According to [Bruno], during this call, Solomon had told her that Byrd-Bennett had already agreed on the price months ago and that they were not discussing any changes because everything was final.”

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