Former MS school superintendent from Biloxi pleads guilty in embezzlement case
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- Three former school officials pleaded guilty to federal conspiracy to embezzle funds.
- Officials used inflated consulting contracts and recycled invoices to divert payments.
- Scheme routed nearly $95,000 to companies benefiting Nelson.
A Mississippi school superintendent from Biloxi and a school teacher from St. Louis, Missouri, pleaded guilty Tuesday to a federal charge of conspiracy to commit embezzlement at Mississippi schools.
Earl Joe Nelson, of Biloxi, and former Clarksdale Municipal School superintendent and Leake County School District superintendent, and former teacher Monekea Smith-Taylor of St. Louis, Missouri, entered the pleas before U.S. District Judge Sharion Aycock in federal court in Aberdeen.
A third defendant in the case, the former Hollandale School District Superintendent Mario Willis, pleaded guilty to the same offense in October.
According to court records, Nelson served as superintendent of the Clarksdale Municipal School District from July 2019 to May 2022, when he left to begin a job as school superintendent of the Leake School District.
According to the records, Nelson and Willis used their positions as school superintendents to get their respective school districts to enter into consulting contracts at inflated prices for services that were never provided.
As part of the scheme, authorities said Nelson authorized tens of thousands of dollars in payments that benefited former Hollandale School District superintendent Mario Willis. In return, Willis directed nearly $95,000 in payments from Hollandale schools to companies benefiting Nelson.
Prosecutors said the scheme relied on recycled and nearly identical invoices with names swapped to justify the payments. Nelson also took part in a related arrangement involving a Missouri schoolteacher who funneled cash back to him after receiving inflated consulting payments.
As part of the scheme and at Willis’s direction, the Hollandale School District paid about $94,400 to Ira Reed Consulting, Inc., and N17 Group, LLC, which ultimately resulted in financial benefits for Nelson.
Then, in return, Nelson, for example, advised the Clarksdale School District to pay about $25,400 to K & S Enterprises, LLC, and ALM Brothers, LLC, both contracts that would result in cash benefits for Willis.
When Nelson took over as superintendent of the Leake School District, he directed the School District to pay about $23,500 to K & S Enterprises, LLC, which resulted in a personal financial benefit for those involved.
As part of the scheme, the trio used fraudulent invoices that Willis first generated to obtain cash-back payments in the criminal conspiracy.
Smith-Taylor owned the Erudition Consulting company, and received money from the school districts for services that were never provided. Once she received the cash for the job, the records say, she would meet Nelson to give him half the cash she made off the bogus contracts.
All three defendants are awaiting sentencing. Each faces a maximum prison sentence of up to five years for the crimes.
“The protection and education of children goes to the very heart of who we are as a people,” U.S. Attorney Scott F. Leary said in a release. “Those who violate this sacred trust will face the consequences of their actions. Always remember those law enforcement officers who spend their careers protecting the public and especially the children of this great state.”
In addition to Leary, Adam Shanedling, acting special agent in charge of the U.S. Department of Education Office of Inspector General’s Eastern Regional Office, weighed in, saying, “Today’s action shows that these former school leaders not only knowingly and willfully abused their positions of trust for personal gain but did so at the expense of the educational development of children.
“That is unacceptable,” he said.
Mississippi State Auditor Shad White commended the U.S. Attorney’s Office for helping to bring the case to a close.
“My office will continue to work with prosecutors to deliver record results for taxpayers” White said in a release.
The Mississippi Office of the State Auditor and the U.S. Department of Education Office of Inspector General are investigating the case.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Clayton A. Dabbs prosecuted the case.
