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Ex-principal charged in EAA bribery scandal

Posted at 5:16 PM, Dec 10, 2015
and last updated 2015-12-10 17:16:16-05

A newly unsealed document reveals that three people involved with Detroit's EAA school district were indicted on federal bribery and conspiracy charges this past July.

Earlier this year, 7 Action News reported that the EAA (the state-created Education Achievement Authority) received a letter from the FBI alerting the organization that the district was “a possible victim in an FBI forfeiture investigation concerning Kenyetta Wilbourn, doing business as For-Most Educational Consultant and Training Group, LLC.”

Kenyetta Wilbourn-Snapp is a former principal of the EAA's Denby High School and Mumford High School.

Documents unsealed today allege that Wilbourn-Snapp conspired with two people involved with an education consulting firm. Glynis Thornton and Paulette Horton were part of a company contracted to offer after school tutoring services to the EAA, the document says.

The indictment alleges that Wilbourn-Snap took kickbacks from Thornton and Horton. The feds say those kickbacks were meant to insure that Thornton and Horton's company, M.A.D.E. Training & Consulting, was kept on as a provider of contracted after school tutoring services.

The scheme alleged in the indictment involved checks being deposited to another company's accounts in order to hide payments to the former principal. This lasted from December 2012 until April 2014.

The three were charged with bribery, conspiracy, money laundering, tax evasion and failing to file taxes. The indictment had been sealed since July 16.