Report: Ex-APS tech chief to plead guilty to taking kickbacks

Atlanta Public Schools's former technology director will plead guilty today to taking $60,000 in kickbacks for steering a contract to a data company, the Dallas Morning News reports.

Trial for Jerome Oberlton was scheduled to start next week, but his attorneys announced in a Tuesday hearing that he would take a plea.

In emails, Oberlton wrote that “I received about $50k in total kickbacks from the work Computech did with APS,” the newspaper reported. Yet Oberlton in another email wrote that when the FBI questioned him, he “thought this was some kind of a joke or something.”

Oberlton was hired by Dallas, Texas, schools after working from 2004 to 2007 as chief information officer for Atlanta schools.

Also charged in the scheme was Mahendra Patel, an information technology consultant, who was Oberlton’s neighbor in Kennesaw. According to an indictment, Oberlton and Patel told unnamed co-conspirators in Detroit they needed to pay kickbacks if they wanted to win a contract for data warehousing.

Patel in August agreed to plead guilty, and he awaits sentencing.

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