Why wouldn’t an organized crime syndicate be prosecuted like an organized crime syndicate?
Of the 65 counts in the Atlanta indictment, Beverly Hall and 34 others were charged with one count of violating Georgia's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). Hall also is charged with making false statements and false writings, and theft by taking. If convicted on all counts, she faces a maximum 45 years in prison.
SAP-HAPPY SUPERINTENDENTS GROUP HONORS HALLIn 2009, Hall was named National Superintendent of the Year by the Schools Superintendents Association, which at the time, said Hall's "leadership turned Atlanta into a model of urban school reform."
HALL'S REIGN OF TERROR But the Atlanta indictment paints another picture of Beverly Hall, one of a supt with "a single-minded purpose, and that was to cheat."
The message from Beverly Hall was clear: There were to be no exceptions and no excuses for failure to meet her targets. For example, teachers who reported other teachers who cheated were terminated, while teachers who were caught cheating were only suspended," the indictment alleges.
"It is further part of the conspiracy and endeavor that targets achieved through cheating were used by Beverly Hall to obtain substantial performance bonuses.....which was at the heart of the conspiracy to cheat, " the indictment said. The indictment alleges a number of educators received performance bonuses based on test scores.
According to the indictment, Hall protected and rewarded teachers who achieved her academic targets by cheating. It also alleges she fired principals who failed to achieve goals and that she ignored "suspicious test score gains" throughout the school system.........a turn of events outed by ace investigative reporters at the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Four of Hall's executive administrators, six principals, two assistant principals, six testing coordinators, 14 teachers, a school improvement specialist and a school secretary were also indicted.
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So how did educators get nailed under RICO? Read on, bloggers.
Rhonda Cook one of the ace AJC reporters who bird-dogged the Hall story reported: The 1980 Georgia General Assembly was concerned about “the increasing sophistication of various criminal elements,” so it adopted the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), patterned after a similar federal law. RICO is often used to try to prove that a legal business was being used for illegal means, and, in the beginning, was used to prosecute drug traffickers or organized crime members.
But in recent years prosecutors have applied RICO to government officials accused of using their offices for personal gain---such as those named here--- the various former and current Atlanta public school officials.
To bring a case under Georgia’s RICO law, there must be at least two underlying felonies — such as fraud, bribery, witness tampering (among others). RICO allows prosecutors to include multiple defendants charged with various crimes in the self-same indictment, and to charge that they were allegedly part of an ongoing criminal enterprise.