South Side school clerk charged as CPS fraud case expands
A clerk for a South Side public elementary school has been indicted in an expanding federal fraud case involving an alleged scheme to falsify orders for school supplies to provide iPhones, iPads and prepaid gift cards to school officials for personal use.
Ashley Beard, 34, a business clerk at Caldwell Math and Science Academy at 85th Street and South Cregier Avenue, was charged with two counts of wire fraud in a superseding indictment brought in U.S. District Court on Monday.
Also charged was Anthony Rasmussen, 47, a sales associate for a suburban vendor that had contracts to supply Chicago Public Schools with paper, printer toner and other school supplies, according to the 10-page indictment.
Their indictment comes three months after Rasmussen’s co-worker at the supply company, Debra Bannack, 62, of Schaumburg, was charged in the same alleged scheme. Bannack has pleaded not guilty.
Beard and Rasmussen were the fifth and sixth people to be charged in the ongoing investigation, which has also ensnared former Brennemann Elementary School Principal Sarah Jackson Abedelal and two of her underlings, who are charged in a separate indictment.
Beard, of Hammond, and Rasmussen, of Des Plaines, are scheduled to be arraigned on the superseding indictment on Friday, court records show.
Beard’s attorney, Bill Stanton, declined to comment on the charges. Rasmussen’s attorney, Mikiko Thelwell, also had no comment.
According to the indictment, from 2015 to 2017, the defendants schemed to falsify order records to make it appear that legitimate school supplies — such as paper, ink and toner—had been delivered, when thousands of dollars had been diverted instead to purchase iPads, iPhones and gift cards for personal use.
As a result of the scheme, Bannack and the CPS employees fraudulently misappropriated approximately $75,000 in Chicago Public Schools funds, the indictment alleged.
The former assistant principal at Brennemann, Jennifer McBride, and the school’s former business manager, William Jackson, are also facing charges.
Abedelal, meanwhile, was first charged in July in a 10-count wire fraud indictment alleging a separate seven-yearschemetohave employees file for overtime they didn’t work and kick back at least $200,000 to her.
Abedelal was the principal of the Buena Park neighborhood school for about 12 years until 2019, when the CPS inspector general began investigating reports of wrongdoing.
According to the charges, after investigators visited Brennemann in March 2019, McBride directed Abedelal “to buy a ‘burner’ phone” so that they could conceal their communications from the inspector general.
Abedelal has pleaded not guilty. Her attorney, Dena Singer, has previously said in a statement that Abed el al “is a wonderful friend and family to everybody who knows her, and she is looking forward to putting this episode behind her.”
Brennemann, in the 4200 block of North Clarendon Avenue, serves just over 400 prekindergarten through eighth grade students. The school’s motto is, “Where high standards and excellence are the expectations,” according to its website.
Caldwell, meanwhile, serves about 260 students in the South Chicago neighborhood.