Charter School Director who embezzled 1 million from Native American schoolchildren gets 10 years

[Hannah Bell]

Former Charter School Dir. Pleads To Embezzlement

The former director of a Minneapolis charter school has been sentenced for embezzling more than $1 million from the school for American Indian children.

Joel Pourier, of Shakopee, pleaded guilty to eight felony counts of theft by swindle. He was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Prosecutors say Pourier forged school officials' signatures on dozens of checks and transferred money to at least six bank accounts he controlled.

According to a criminal complaint, Pourier spent the money on houses, cars and at strip clubs, forcing students at Oh Day Aki/Heart of the Earth school to go without textbooks, supplies and field trips.

http://wcco.com/local/charter.director.sentenced.2.1886898.html

[izquierdista]

1. What lies at the top?

I had no idea that a cell with bars was what this race was all about!

[Selatius]

2. He did it wrong. He should've put his friends on the city council and made it fund his school.

Of course, this would come at the expense of local public schools. Money being sent to charter schools by local municipalities means money not being sent to the public schools there. This is a new way of "privatization." You simply starve out the public schools rather than simply out-right taking them away.

[whistler162]

3. Surprising.... a lot longer than most get for a similar crime.

http://wcco.com/education/embezzlement.charter.school.2.790436.html the original story, or one of them.

[Tsiyu]

4. Thanks for keeping up with all the scum

Indians and school children for double the exploitation.

And to think how more government oversight might have "really" hurt those kids...

:sarcasm: jest in case

[Brickbat]

5. Shameful, shameful, shameful.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

6. He got off light.

:mad:

Expect more of the same -- the Charter school movement will be a $$$ bonanza for scum like him.

[dkf]

7. Good.

[bobbolink]

8. Prison is too good for criminals like this!

Gotta, gotta love PRIVATIZATION!

[ProgressiveEconomist]

9. Have all his family's assets been seized? The link in the OP says the school charter

was revoked, but not whether any money was recovered and spent on the hundreds of Native American schoolchildren whose educations he stunted.

Can you imagine the HATRED and CONTEMPT for Native American children it must have taken to carry out these horrible acts? Who was on the school's board? Did some of them get some of the money too?