Former head of New York City Department of Education's food operations, 3 food executives convicted in extortion & bribery scheme
NEW YORK -- The former head of the New York City Department of Education's food operations and three executives of a company that supplied food to city schools have been convicted in an extortion and bribery scheme that involved serving tainted food to students.
It's a story CBS New York first reported on about six years ago.
It was a school food scandal that took place when Bill de Blasio was mayor and Carmen Farina was the schools chancellor.
Eric Goldstein and three food executives he bought food from for city students stand convicted of a massive fraud and bribery scheme that resulted in tainted food turning up in school cafeterias.
As CBS New York first showed you, the food included pizza and egg-and-cheese sandwiches with what appeared to be disgusting mold, and chicken tenders with pieces of metal, plastic and bones. A DOE employee even choked on a bone that had not been removed from the chicken tenders.
Brooklyn United States Attorney Breon Peace called it "a textbook example of choosing greed over the needs of our schools and the well-being of our children. Our children depended on nutritious meals served in schools and instead, got substandard food products containing pieces of plastic, metal, and bones, which is unacceptable."
During the course of CBS New York's investigation, political reporter Marcia Kramer confronted Goldstein about quality control issues.
"How many quality assurance people do you have in the system?" Kramer asked at the time.
"We have, off the top of my head, I don't know the exact number, but a fair number," Goldstein said.
"You don't know how many quality assurance officers you have for your 1,400 schools?" Kramer asked.
"We have approximately about ten or so," Goldstein said.
"Is that enough for 1,400 schools?" Kramer asked.
"It depends on the number of incidents. If it's something to be revisited, we'll certainly revisit that," Goldstein said.
Goldstein was charged with demanding and accepting bribes from the food executives to continue to allow their tainted products to be served to city students. All four face up to 20 years in jail.