Hornsby corruption case update

(Posted 12 Dec 2006)

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More on the federal criminal charges against former school CEO Andre Hornsby. These stories suggest that the alledged criminal behavior and investigations predate Hornsby's arrival in Prince George's County by several years and and tend to further confirm my doubts about the diligence and judgment of our former appointed school board.

Court Documents Detail Alleged Hornsby Schemes
wtopnews.com, 12 Dec 2006 (AP, Manning).

Court documents unsealed Monday detail carefully orchestrated plans by the former head of the Prince George's County schools to reap roughly $150,000 in kickbacks by steering school money to companies he had ties to.
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Hornsby was investigated for alleged wrongdoing while he was in Yonkers, but has not been charged with a crime. According to the FBI affidavit, he allegedly forced Apple Computers Inc. and Xerox Corp. to make donations to the National Alliance of Black School Educators, a group Hornsby led, in return for Yonkers contracts.

He also allegedly had spare school computers sent to his relatives and destroyed evidence after being tipped off before a search by local investigators.

Ex-aide an informant; Woman who worked for Hornsby assisted federal probe
Sun, 12 Dec 2006 (Dolan).

An educational technology expert who had long worked for former Prince George's County schools chief Andre J. Hornsby accused the prominent educator of accepting kickbacks from contractors and then destroying the evidence years before he arrived in Maryland, according to court papers unsealed yesterday.

In a meeting secretly recorded by the FBI, the unnamed witness, who worked with Hornsby in Texas, New York and finally in Maryland, provided federal agents the chance to tape a jittery Hornsby two years ago at Bowie hotel, court papers say.
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Former PG schools chief knew of criminal probe
Times, 12 Dec 2006 (McElhatton).

Prince George's County schools chief Andre J. Hornsby was worried about investigators tracking his moves, prompting him to check for government-marked vehicles tailing him and ordering the deletion of backup copies of his e-mail records, according to federal court documents unsealed yesterday.
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As press reports on the investigation emerged in November 2004, Mr. Hornsby instructed school system personnel to delete the backup copies of his e-mail records, the affidavit says.
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FBI Tape Shows Hornsby Accepting Money
Post, 12 Dec 2006 (Rich).

As soon as he walked into the hotel room, Andre J. Hornsby talked to his longtime associate about the possibility he had been followed.
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The affidavit, signed by FBI Special Agent John M. Sheridan, does not identify the female associate at the hotel, . . .

According to the affidavit, the associate appears to have been a reluctant participant in Hornsby's alleged misconduct. In fact, Sheridan wrote, the associate approached the district attorney's office in Westchester County, N.Y., in 1999 to complain about Hornsby, triggering a previously undisclosed criminal investigation in which dozens of meetings or phone calls with Hornsby were taped.
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