The Prison Policy Initiative reports, “the initial efforts to reduce jail populations have slowed, while the small drops in state prison populations are still too little to save lives.”
However, Gary Solomon, a criminal partner along with Tom Vranas and Rahm Emanuel’s CPS CEO Barbara Byrd-Bennett, will leave prison three years early as a part of compassionate realease due to the coronavirus.
Both Vranas and Byrd-Bennett have already been released.
Solomon has been held at a minimum-security prison camp in Duluth, Minnesota.
Emanuel’s terms as mayor brought chaos to Chicago’s public schools, mass school closings, multiple comings and goings at the top and major corruption scandals.
Solomon’s involvement with Vranos and Byrd-Bennett being one of the biggest.
All three will be out of prison only five years after they were first charged.
Gary Solomon will be moved to home confinement.
According to Jon Seidel and Lauren FitzPatrick in the Chicago Sun-Times, home confinement will either mean a 2,700-square-foot stucco home in Wilmette that Solomon and his wife bought in 1997 or a spacious four-bedroom, three-fireplace lakehouse in Harbert, Michigan, yards from Lake Michigan, that the Solomons built and refinanced for $1.1 million in late 2013 — months after CPS awarded Solomon’s company a $20.5 million no-bid contract.
Rahm remains unindicted.
Fred Klonsky 
During my first go-round in teaching (!969-80) out in LaGrange, I had a 4th grader named Gary Solomon. I’ve tried to find background info to see if this is the same person, but no luck.
Seems like something he would have done, tho.
I was hoping that the government would seize his properties & sell them, with a claw back (as has been done w/Madoff & other such lowlifes) to CPS. After all, the money was stolen from CPS, which is, of course, always in need of funds.
That way, Gary can spend his confinement in…a tent. And even that is too good for him.
Insofar as Rahm (“16 Shots & a Cover Up”)–well,, ha ha–he’s making even more $$$$$ as a “commentator” for ABC on George Stephanopoulos’ Sunday AM show (if not more). The estimable (not) Chris Christie is also on. Perhaps Rahm will, one day, anger him, & he will sit on R.E.
One can only hope…
Every one mentioned in the article above…excepting the reporters…belongs in Prison.
“… with liberty and justice for all” has never been an American reality.
We were taught that it was an American goal attempting to become a reality.
Today it is a contemptible mockery – a bipartisan taunt by the wealthy and the politically connected.
I am generally against imprisonment for non-violent crimes, with some exceptions. While Solomon, Vranas, and Byrd-Bennett deserved some time in prison, we have to remember they just stole money. Other principals, superintendents, and school board members have committed acts of wrongdoing for financial gain that should carry at least as much prison time, and maybe more, as they ruined the lives of many excellent, devoted, long-term teachers in Illinois.
SB7 was a teacher evaluation law that by-passed due process. It entirely depended and trusted on the integrity of the school principals, to give fair and un-biased teacher evaluations. Some principals took it upon themselves to give false, bad ratings on the new SB7 teacher evaluations, some were ordered to do so by their superintendents. These principals and superintendents usually would get a extra raise for cutting their labor costs. They don’t care about the devastation they caused by their lies, as long as they get their raise. Some of the superintendents were ordered to do so by their school boards. The phony, bad ratings were used to “get rid of” long-term higher-paid teachers in order to replace them with new teachers at much lower beginner-level pay.
The victims of these dishonest administrators/school boards were usually teachers with a short time to go until they could retire. Being fired and falsely rated as a substandard teacher causes ruin to these teachers. They suffer severe economic, professional, and health damage to the victims. Usually their retirement eligibility is delayed by up to seven years, and their retirement amount is substantially less then it would have been. They lose their health insurance and sometimes their health as a result.
All of the firings of long term teachers should be investigated by an outside agency or special prosecutors. Deliberately falsely reporting a teachers rating in a school receiving federal funds is akin to perjury, and should carry prison time. If a principal was “following orders”, they should be given reduced time if they testify against the higher-ups in the school system until they get to the persons who gave the order, up to and including school board members.
I agree with your points about false teacher evaluations. While I was a local union president I successfully challenged literally hundreds of teacher evaluations even though the law restricted the union to filing grievances on procedural grounds, not substantive grounds. I disagree about Byrd-Bennett, Solomon and Vranas. They stole more than money. It was money intended for our student’s education. The cost is immeasurable. Jail time was insufficient.