The former head of Atlanta Public Schools’ technology department was sentenced Thursday to three years and five months in federal prison for taking kickbacks in connection with a school technology contract.
Jerome Oberlton and his co-defendant, information technology consultant Mahendra Patel, will also together have to pay restitution of $735,130 to the Atlanta Public Schools. Oberlton has a negative net worth, U.S. District Judge Thomas Thrash said in court, but must pay restitution through any wages earned in prison and after his release.
Oberlton pleaded guilty earlier this year after reaching a deal with prosecutors. The sentence Thrash imposed is in line with the terms of that deal.
In court Thursday, Oberlton said he accepted responsibility for his actions.
“While I know that … I was not the most sharpest person at that time (I had) no intention to harm, hurt or injure Atlanta Public Schools or anyone,” he said.
Oberlton took $60,000 in kickbacks in exchange for awarding a $780,000 contract to a technology contractor called Computech, according to federal prosecutors. The contract involved a data warehousing project to centralize the school system’s computer information so it could be easily accessed by school district employees.
The school district received “little if any value” from Computech’s work and eventually paid another vendor more than $1.1 million to develop the data warehouse, according to a written statement the district provided to the court. The district also spent more than $16,000 in legal costs in connection with the Oberlton investigation.
“Oberlton lined his own pockets at the expense of the APS students and teachers who depended on him,” United States Attorney Sally Quillian Yates said in a written statement. “In a time when schools struggle to make the most of every dollar, Oberlton put his own greed before his obligation to protect scarce resources.”
Oberlton worked as the Atlanta school system’s chief information officer from 2004 to 2007. After leaving APS, Oberlton held a private-sector job before joining Baltimore City Public Schools and then the Dallas Independent School District, where he worked as chief of staff. He resigned from the Dallas school system last year.
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