'Roger Rabbit' Indicted 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.

Eric Goldstein, the former CEO of the Office of School Support Services for New York City Schools, is accused of soliciting and accepting bribes from food vendors to supply school lunch ingredients. He was arrested last week in New York. His co-defendants Blaine Iler, Michael Turley and Brian Twomey were also taken into custody in Texas and Arkansas, respectively.

"Goldstein is alleged to have abused his position as a senior executive with the Department of Education by soliciting and accepting thousands of dollars in bribes for pure financial gain," United States Attorney Jacquelyn Kasulis said in a statement unsealing the indictments. "In exchange, Goldstein’s co-conspirators obtained lucrative contracts to provide food services that consisted of substandard products that were served to students, teachers and staff in public schools.”

Federal prosecutors say that while he was in charge of the school lunch program in New York City schools, he 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.

According, to court filings, Goldstein is alleged to have 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. Goldstein 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. "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."