66-Year-Old Illinois School Worker Charged With Stealing Over $1.5 Million In Chicken Wings

A 66-year-old Illinois school district worker was charged for allegedly stealing more than $1.5 million worth of food, mostly chicken wings, from the impoverished district, RadarOnline.com has learned.

Vera Liddell was the food service director for Harvey School District in Harvey, Illinois, outside of Chicago. Authorities claimed the food service director allegedly began stealing from the district in the form of massive food orders during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the NY Post, prosecutors accused the school worker of using the pandemic-enforced policies by the district to her advantage. Liddell was accused of using district funds to order over 11,00 cases of chicken wings for students. Those cases never made it to school cafeterias.

At the time that the alleged school funds theft began, students were participating in virtual learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic but were able meals to pick up through the district.

Food scarcity is a crisis for students across the country and was heightened when schools closed during the pandemic, which temporarily prevented thousands of learners from school-provided meals that they depended on for nourishment.

Programs like the Illinois' school district's meal pick-up were intended to alleviate further disruption in student learning by continued access to substances, which was especially crucial to low-income families in the impoverished district.

Court records claimed that due to allegations against Liddell, those meals never made it to students.

"The food was never brought to the school or provided to the students," court records claimed of the alleged chicken wing theft.

Allegations against the district employee were brought to light after the Harvey School District manager conducted an audit in January 2022.

The audit led to a shocking discovery of gross overspending. At just halfway through the academic year, the district's annual food costs were already $300,000 over budget, allegedly due to extreme order quantities prosecutors claimed Liddell placed for herself.