Oakland: Ex-American Indian Public Charter School director gets probation in grant fraud case

OAKLAND — In a plea deal with prosecutors, an author and former Oakland charter school director was sentenced to one year of federal probation for a charge of falsifying grant applications for his school.

Lumberton, N.C. resident Benford “Ben” Chavis, 61, was indicted two years ago on charges of fraud and money laundering, in what prosecutors described as a scheme to obtain more than $2.5 million of federally funded grants in violation of conflict-of-interest rules.

The fraud charge alone carried a maximum of 20 years in prison.

The indictment alleged that the schools obtained more than $1.1 million in federal grants as a result of this fraud and that Chavis intended to use fraud proceeds to pay leases on companies he owned, American Delivery Systems and Lumbee Properties LLC. At the time of the alleged offenses, Chavis was director of three Oakland charter schools, collectively known as the American Indian Model Schools.

In January, he accepted a plea deal on a less serious offense, conspiracy to unlawfully transfer a document. A new charging document, filed four days before the plea deal was finalized, accused Chavis and another school board member of fraudulently using the board member’s mother’s name on official documents.

The sentence of one year’s probation — finalized in late April but not previously reported on — was agreed upon by federal prosecutors, who noted Chavis had a low possibility of recidivism and said Chavis had done good work despite his crime.

“Dr. Chavis deserves some credit for playing a central role in turning around the academic performance of the American Indian Model Schools during his tenure there, even though he engaged in underhanded practices at the same time,” Garth Hire, an assistant U.S. Attorney, wrote in a sentencing memo.

Prosecutors also noted that Chavis is a convicted felon and that if he reoffends while on supervised release, “serious consequences will likely follow.”

In a letter to the court, Chavis said he was “ashamed and embarrassed” by his conduct. He said he continues to teach and offers a free math camp to kids.

“As a career educator, I should have known, and did know, better. But my overzealousness to maintain the school and its record of high student achievement blinded me from applying what my grandparents and parents taught me growing up—one must be a responsible hard-working man of integrity,” Chavis wrote in the letter.

From 2000 to 2012, Chavis served off and on as the director and in various additional capacities for three Oakland charter schools — the American Indian Public Charter School, the American Indian Public High School II  and the American Indian Public High School — as well as the schools’ umbrella organization, the American Indian Model Schools, referred to as AIMS.

His tenure ended in controversy. In 2012, an investigation by the state Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team found that from 2007 to 2011, Chavis had directed $3.8 million from the school to companies he owned for contracts not approved by the school board. He stepped down from the school in 2013. The investigation’s findings prompted the county superintendent to refer the case to federal authorities.

At the time, American Indian Model’s middle schools had at the time the best test scores in Oakland and among the highest in the state; its high school also had near-perfect scores. Chavis authored a book, Crazy Like a Fox: One Principal’s Triumph in the Inner City, about his experiences, in which he says he turned the school around from being the worst middle school in Oakland.