Kenyetta (K.C.) Wilbourn Snapp
Ex-Detroit principal Kenyetta (K.C.) Wilbourn Snapp who was named in a federal indictment in a kickback scheme announced Thursday, tells the Detroit Free Press she started breaking the law after being on the job as principal at Denby High School for less than a week.
After a while, stealing money became easy, she tells columnist Rochelle Riley.
"If you needed money, you could get money," Snapp, 40, says in a series of exclusive interviews.
The educator began lawbreaking in her first week, Riley writes:
It was 2009. She was in her first stint as a principal, and she was to run Denby High School, the city's worst-performing school that year. The Detroit native was eager to achieve — and eager to please.
“I was the first person to make it in my family, so everybody started coming around,” she said. “My grandmother showed up and Food Services hired her. ... Then comes my uncle tagging along and, I’m like, ‘Do I have to give him a job?’ "
She had no job available, so she asked her football coach to hire her uncle as an assistant. She paid him using funds from a DPS vendor. That vendor paid Snapp $750 every time she gave him the names of 20 students for a tutoring program. She said she doesn't know whether the program actually existed.
The second time she broke the law, she buried a student’s mother. With school funds.
She knew it was illegal. But after the first few times, stealing became easy. Then it became routine. And Snapp, a beloved high school principal by day, became a savvy, well-connected crook around the clock.
Riley writes that Snapp saw herself as a Robin Hood.
Several employees, parents and students have called Snapp a role model, a savior, a self-esteem builder; some wrote letters to the court asking for leniency.
And why shouldn’t her supporters be loyal? The former principal used school funds for everything from teacher parties to prom gowns. She gave cash to staff members she felt didn’t get paid enough, and she gave some to students when they asked.
Snapp became a bank. She said the lines between right and wrong got so blurred that soon she didn't bother to separate her money from school funds.
She told the Freep in October, before the indictment was unsealed, that she had already cut a deal to plead guilty.
Federal authorities on Thursday announced the public corruption indictment against Snapp and two others, on charges that they all conspired to commit bribery and money laundering.
The two others named in the five-count indictment issued in July, but unsealed Thursday, included Glynis Thornton, whose company, Making a Difference Everyday (“M.A.D.E.”), provided after-school tutoring services to Denby and Mumford, and Paulette Horton, who was an independent contractor working for M.A.D.E., the U.S. Attorney's Office said.
According to a press release, the indictment charges Snapp selected Thornton’s M.A.D.E. as the after-school tutoring vendor for Denby and Mumford.
In exchange, authorities allege that Thornton paid Snapp kickbacks as a reward for Snapp selecting and retaining M.A.D.E. as the after-school tutoring vendor. Thornton allegedly disguised payments to Snapp by causing checks to be issued payable to Horton’s company, rather than paying Snapp directly, authorities said. Horton would then deposit and withdraw the money and give it to Snapp.
