Plea entered in APS kickback case
A metro area businessman on Friday pleaded guilty to participating in a kickback scheme with a former high-ranking Atlanta Public Schools official.
Mahendra Patel, 45, entered his plea before U.S. District Judge Thomas Thrash and admitted to conspiring to bribe government officials and commit mail and wire fraud. He is to be sentenced Nov. 1.
Earlier this year, Patel was indicted with Jerome Oberlton, who served as APS chief of information technology from 2004 to 2007. Oberlton has pleaded not guilty.
During Friday’s plea hearing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jill Steinberg said the two men accepted about $60,000 in kickbacks from an unspecified company that was awarded a $700,000 APS contract in 2007 for a data warehousing project.
About the Author
Bill Rankin has been an AJC reporter for more than 30 years. His father, Jim Rankin, worked as an editor for the newspaper for 26 years, retiring in 1986. Bill has primarily covered the state’s court system, doing all he can do to keep the scales of justice on an even keel. Since 2015, he has been the host of the newspaper’s Breakdown podcast.
