Not even cafeteria chicken wings are safe from crime in Chicago. Sixty-six-year-old Vera Liddell, the director of food services for Harvey School District 151, has been charged with a massive embezzlement scheme after she allegedly stole over $1.5M worth of taxpayer-funded school meals and over 11,000 cases of chicken wings. She's currently being held at Cook County jail on $150,000 bond.

What's even more impressive than the sheer quantity of chicken wings stolen is the short timeframe in which Liddell was able to steal and consume such a vast quantity of chicken wings. Her poultry poaching ramped up during the Covid pandemic when students were no longer attending school in person, but lunches were packaged for families to pick up. The fraud allegedly only lasted 19 months, from July 2020 to February 2022.

The fowl felon was found out after a routine mid-year audit in January 2022 showed the food district exceeded its budget by a whopping $300k, even though it was only halfway through the year. Seems like Vera got a little too cocky in her aptitude for chicken stealing.

At one point, Vera reportedly placed the order for more than 11,000 cases of chicken wings and picked them up in a district cargo van. The order was billed to the school district. Employees of the food supplier, Gordon Food Services, said they knew the chicken thief “due to the massive amount of chicken wings she would purchase."

It is not known what happened to the extreme quantity of chicken wings after Vera hauled them home. Prosecutors noted, “the food was never brought to the school or provided to the students” and that chicken wings are not ordinarily served to students, since they have bones.

The sad part of this story is Harvey School District comprises about 1,600 students, and over 80 percent qualify as low-income. But on the bright side, I bet Vera threw one hell of a Super Bowl party.

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