'Roger Rabbit' Guilty In School Lunch Bribery, Extortion Scheme

NEW ROCHELLE, NY — A New Rochelle man has been indicted in connection with an extortion and bribery scheme that raised questions about school lunches in New York City schools.

On Wednesday, a federal jury in Brooklyn returned guilty verdicts on all counts of a superseding indictment against Eric Goldstein, the former Chief Executive Officer of the New York City Department of Education’s (NYC DOE) Office of School Support Services. Blaine Iler, Michael Turley and Brian Twomey, operators of a food services company, were also convicted of conspiring to commit extortion under color of official right and solicitation and giving of bribes relating to programs receiving federal funds.

The verdict followed a 4-week trial. When they are sentenced for conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act extortion, Hobbs Act extortion, conspiracy to commit federal program bribery, federal program bribery, conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud, and honest services wire fraud, the defendants each face up to 20 years in prison.

Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, announced the verdict.

"The defendants’ criminal conduct is a textbook example of choosing greed over the needs of our schools and the well-being of our children," Peace said. "Our children depended on nutritious meals served in schools and instead, got substandard food products containing pieces of plastic, metal, and bones, which is unacceptable. Today’s verdict demonstrates the consequences of corruptly placing personal profit over the public interests."

Peace thanked the FBI for their "outstanding" investigative work on the case.

Federal prosecutors proved that while he was in charge of the school lunch program in New York City schools, Goldstein both steered lucrative supply contracts to companies he had a financial interest in and demanded payment for helping to gloss over accusations that the companies were delivering substandard products for use in students' lunches after a school district employee choked on a bone that had not been removed from a chicken tender.

The suspect products were served in schools until April 2017 when, following repeated complaints from students and staff that the chicken tenders continued to contain foreign objects, including plastic, metal and bones, officials decided to remove all of the food service company’s products from New York City public school menus, FBI officials said.

Goldstein often used the codename "Roger Rabbit" as an alias in communications with his co-conspirators in order to hide his identity in the kickback scheme. He was fired by the state's Department of Education chancellor in 2018 after receiving complaints about repeated poor performance, according to a report from the Daily Mail.

"As alleged, Goldstein used his position within the DOE to help promote a business in which he had a financial interest, which is not only illegal, but also doesn’t allow for a fair bidding process between competing interests," FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Driscoll said announcing the arrests in October of 2021. "As a result of this scheme, Goldstein and his coconspirators learned a lesson of their own today in what not to do with taxpayer money."