For Stealing 11000 Chicken Wings Cases, School Staff Gets 9 Yr Jail Sentence in US

A 68-year-old school employee in Illinois, USA was sentenced to nine years in jail for stealing 11000 cases of chicken wings meant for students during the COVID pandemic.

The convict, Vera Liddell, stole chicken wings over a period of 19 months. The 68-year-old was charged with theft and operating a criminal enterprise.

The total cost of the chicken wings stolen by him is estimated to be $1.5 million (approx ₹ 12.5 crores).

Liddell made this theft of chicken wings while he was the food service director for the Harvey School District 152.

She placed the orders for chicken wings from July 2020 to February 2022 for the students. She billed the district for the chicken wings that never reached the students.

This fraud started when due to COVID threat, students were not coming to school. Yet the school district continued to provide meals for the students that their families could pick up.

Liddell’s theft came to light when a routine audit showed that the district’s food service department had already exceeded its annual budget by $300,000, halfway through the school year.