A former Chicago Public Faculties STEM trainer who admitted collaborating in a multimillion-dollar Southwest Airways voucher rip-off acquired a sentence of a yr and a day in federal jail on Monday, bringing an official finish to a sprawling scheme that prosecutors say drained the airline of almost $2 million.
Ned Brooks, who taught at Fiske Elementary in West Woodlawn and spent greater than 20 years working in CPS lecture rooms, acquired his sentence after pleading responsible final yr to 1 depend of wire fraud.
In courtroom filings, Brooks admitted shopping for and reselling hundreds of “Southwest Luv Vouchers” that his co-defendant, airline customer support agent Dajuan Martin, generated by exploiting his entry to Southwest’s customer support compensation system.
Martin has already been sentenced to 2 years in federal jail and was ordered to make $1,875,900 in restitution.
Prosecutors say Martin obtained hundreds of fraudulent vouchers by getting into codes into Southwest’s system to make it seem prospects had been receiving vouchers for disagreeable journey experiences. As a substitute, he used actual and fictitious names to generate vouchers, then bought them to Brooks, who “knew he was not entitled to the SLVs,” in line with the federal government’s sentencing memo. Brooks resold the vouchers for private revenue. In whole, authorities say, Brooks brought on Southwest to lose at the least $1,786,000.
Court docket data describe an astonishingly fast-moving fraud that ballooned in a matter of weeks. In February 2022, Martin reaped about $4,000 from the scheme, almost doubling his month-to-month earnings, in line with the federal government’s filings. Inside two months, by April 2022, he had embezzled greater than $200,000. By Might and June 2022, the full had surged previous $2,000,000, a tempo prosecutors known as an exponential escalation.
The federal government stated Martin embezzled greater than $2,150,000 from February by way of June 2022 earlier than Southwest audits uncovered the scheme. Brooks took half for a number of months, and prosecutors say he recruited at the least two different individuals into the operation.
Brooks pleaded responsible on November 6, 2024, beneath a written plea settlement. “Restitution is obligatory on this case,” prosecutors wrote, urging the courtroom to order him to pay the total quantity collectively with Martin.
Of their filings, prosecutors argued that Brooks “engaged in blatantly fraudulent conduct for a number of months,” pushed by greed regardless of incomes a steady earnings as a longtime trainer. “This was not a one-time lapse in judgment,” they wrote. “Defendant’s actions had been methodical and calculated.”
Brooks’ protection legal professional, in contrast, emphasised the veteran trainer’s many years of neighborhood work. Court docket filings be aware that Brooks spent his profession educating math, science, and know-how to underrepresented college students, teaching youth sports activities, mentoring younger academics, and volunteering in packages geared toward serving to minority college students enter STEM fields.
U.S. District Choose John Tharp dealt with the case and sentencing.
