Stiff Sentence Urged in Theft Of Charter Funds

Fired Official Jeopardized Students' Educations and Futures, Prosecutors Say

While D.C. charter schools executive Brenda Belton was stealing and illegally steering $800,000 in charter funds, she was jeopardizing the futures of 3,500 District students, prosecutors argued yesterday.

Belton, who was fired last year, was responsible for monitoring 17 charter schools for the D.C. Board of Education from 2003 to 2006 and was stealing throughout her tenure, prosecutors said. Meanwhile, 52 to 95 percent of each school's students were below proficiency in math and reading last year, prosecutors note.

Now they are arguing to a federal judge that Belton, 61, deserves a significant prison sentence for shortchanging those students -- and they are taking the unusual step of citing the test scores to make their case. Belton, a D.C. native, pleaded guilty in August to four counts of theft and tax evasion. She faces a prison term of 24 to 46 months at her sentencing next month.

The charter schools overseen by Belton had been billed as offering a better opportunity for a decent education to primarily poor African American children, an alternative to failing D.C. public schools. But statistics show they were among the city's worst schools during Belton's years at the helm.

Belton, who has a doctorate in education, has admitted in court that she steered $446,000 in no-bid contracts to friends and a cousin, sent $203,000 in school money to a dummy consulting firm and took $180,000 in kickbacks and gifts from contractors she helped win school business.

Belton rarely came to work and steered contracts to friends who did cursory reviews of the charter schools' performance, according to records in the case.

Most students weren't achieving. Figures presented by prosecutors indicated that on average, 77 percent of the children in the board charter schools were below proficiency in math, based on schools that reported data in 2006, and 70 percent were below proficiency in reading.

"Dr. Belton was given the honors and privileges of public office and the comforts of a good salary with benefits," prosecutors wrote yesterday in documents filed with U.S. District Judge Ricardo M. Urbina. "Yet she stole educational opportunities from young, predominantly African-American boys and girls, the vast majority of whom were at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder . . . so she, her family, and her friends could enjoy the trappings of wealth and conspicuous consumption."

In his filing to Urbina, Assistant U.S. Attorney Timothy C. Lynch listed all the test scores for the board charter schools from 2003 to 2006 and called them "heartbreaking for anyone who cares about children." They included data showing that:

¿ 95 percent of 170 students at Washington Academy Public Charter School were below proficiency for math in 2006.