Not guilty pleas entered in APS kickback indictment

The former chief information officer for Atlanta Public Schools and a Kennesaw information technology consultant on Tuesday entered not guilty pleas before a U.S. magistrate and were released on $25,000 bond.

Jerome Oberlton, 47, and Mahendra Patel, 45, were recently indicted by a federal grand jury in Atlanta for allegedly receiving kickbacks in exchange for Oberlton using his influence at APS to award a $780,000 computer project in 2007. A computer company that won a data warehousing contract allegedly paid $60,000 in bribes to Oberlton and Patel over almost six months, prosecutors said.