Chicago-area school worker charged with stealing $1.5 Million worth of chicken wings

Photo by: WDAY Radio Staff
Photo by: WDAY Radio Staff

(Harvey, IL) -- A food service director is being accused of stealing one-and-a-half million dollars worth of chicken wings from a Chicago-area school district.

Vera Liddell is accused of ordering more than eleven-thousand cases of the wings from the district's food provider before picking them up in a district cargo van.

Court records say the fraud began during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic when students were unable to attend classes in person. The theft was discovered during a mid-year audit when the district realized it was 300-thousand dollars over its food budget.

Liddell is currently in jail on 150-thousand-dollars bond. There's no word on what happened to the chicken wings.