After 38 years of working for Detroit Public Schools, an assistant superintendent admitted in federal court today that she cheated kids with disabilities out of school supplies by helping a crooked vendor run a kickback scheme that could send her to prison for nearly six years.
With her voice quivering, Clara Flowers, 61, of Detroit pleaded guilty to accepting $324,685 in kickbacks from a vendor as a thank-you for helping him bill DPS for school supplies that were intended for children with disabilities but were never delivered.
Flowers, the assistant superintendent of Detroit Public Schools' Office of Specialized Student Services, offered no explanation or excuses for her actions. When asked to explain what she did, Flowers, in a shaky voice, said: "I received kickbacks from Norman Shy."
Flowers said the kickbacks from Shy — who has also been charged in the case — came in the forms of checks, prepaid gift cards and home improvements on her private residence. Their scheme, she said, lasted from 2009 through 2015.
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Flowers' sentencing range is 57-71 months in prison. She also was ordered to make $324,785 in restitution to DPS, and another $27,488 in restitution to the Internal Revenue Service for unpaid taxes.
"She wants to apologize to the students, to the staff and the parents of the Detroit Public Schools. She is profoundly sorry for what she did and accepts full responsibility," said her lawyer Frank Eaman.
Supporters hugged Flowers in the hallway afterward and stood by her side as they left the federal courthouse. She declined to comment and said nothing as she walked down Fort Street, away from the federal court building.
She will be sentenced Sept. 6.
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appearing in U.S. District Court in downtown Detroit today was Tanya Bowman, 48, of Novi, principal at Osborn Collegiate Academy of Mathematics, Science and Technology. Bowman pleaded guilty to bribery, admitting she took $12,500 in kickbacks from Shy as a reward for helping him submit fraudulent invoices for school supplies.
She said she received only prepaid gift cards from Shy and nothing else.
Under the terms of her deal, she faces between 18 and 24 months in prison. She also has to pay back DPS $12,500 in restitution.
Bowman offered no explanation or apology — unlike another principal did last week when she pleaded guilty to the same crime as Bowman.
DPS Principal Clara Smith, who pleaded guilty to accepting $194,000 in kickbacks from Shy, said that she spent a lot of the kickbacks on her students. For example, she said, she used prepaid gift cards from Shy to help decorate her school, buy clothes for students and Christmas presents, and to help pay for student trips to Chicago and Washington D.C.
Smith also said the scam to submit phony invoices to DPS was Shy's idea.
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t was Shy who lured her, Smith said.
"He was saying, 'Most of the principals are doing it. I've been a vendor for 50 years, and no one has ever gotten caught,' " said Smith, who faces between 46 and 57 months in federal prison for her crime.
Shy, 74, of Franklin also has been charged in the case and has a plea hearing scheduled for May 11.
Shy, Flowers and Bowman
are among 14 defendants who were charged in March with running individual kickback schemes over a period of 13 years that involved principals helping a vendor cheat Detroit students out of school supplies that were paid for, but rarely delivered. Of those charged were 12 principals, one assistant superintendent and the vendor, whom prosecutors say was at the center of the scheme. According to the U.S. Attorney's Office, Shy billed DPS $5 million over a period of 13 years, of which $2.7 million was ill-gotten.
Shy did this, prosecutors said, with the help of principals who approved fraudulent purchase orders, which then let Shy submit phony invoices. When Shy got paid, he kicked some of that money back to the principals as a reward, prosecutors allege. Some principals received as little as $4,000, court records show, while others pocketed tens of thousands of dollars, including Flowers, who got the most: $324,785.
All but two of the 14 defendants have cut deals in the case.
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