School Workers Charged with Stealing Thousands of Textbooks
September 26, 2013
I suppose school librarians can become jaded just like anyone else, but this story is fairly remarkable. L.A. Now reports, “13 School Workers, Librarians Indicted in Textbook Theft Ring.” The scam enriched participants at the expense of students in Los Angeles County school districts already strapped for cash. The scam-runner is said to have paid out over $200,000 to his thieves. Reporter Richard Winton tells us:
“A 37-page indictment unsealed Thursday tells of a book-selling scheme in which book buyer Corey Frederick recruited two librarians, a campus supervisor and a former warehouse manager, among others, to allegedly steal thousands of books from schools in Los Angeles, Inglewood and Bellflower.
“The scheme ran from 2008 to December 2010, prosecutors said.
“In return, the operators of ‘Doorkeeper Textz’ in Long Beach would pay the employees from $600 to $47,000 for acquiring textbooks, which were district property.
“In some cases, prosecutors allege Frederick would resell the books through other intermediaries back to the institutions from which they were originally stolen weeks before.
“Prosecutors, according to court records, allege the participants pilfered at least 7,000 textbooks from the Los Angeles Unified School District alone.”
The scheme only came to light, years later, after a sharp eye in the Inglewood district noticed something amiss and alerted authorities. Frederick and his recruits were (allegedly) able to pursue the strategy because no organized tracking system was in place. In fact, prosecutors cannot determine just how many books were stolen. I hope this will prompt the districts affected (or, really, any group tasked with managing public resources) to embrace well-organized tracking systems and inventory databases. We have the technology to prohibit this sort of thing, or to at least make it harder to get away with. Let’s use it.
Cynthia Murrell, September 26, 2013
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