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Ex-school
trustee jailed
Former East Detroit board member gets 15 months.
by Mike Wowk, The Detroit News, May 15, 2003
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For months after
a massive corruption scandal in the East Detroit schools was
made public, friends and neighbors stopped school board Trustee
Tom Gancos in supermarkets and elsewhere and asked: "When is (a
board member) going to jail?"
They got an answer Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Detroit.
Former East Detroit board member Karen DeGrande, who
acknowledged taking bribes from a contractor involved in a
multimillion building project, was sentenced to 15 months in a
federal prison.
Gancos was one of five current East Detroit board members who
urged U.S. District Judge Patrick Duggan to give DeGrande jail
time rather than probation.
"As long as that (jail) door shuts behind her, I'm happy,"
Gancos said later.
School Trustee Larry Burton, who also spoke at DeGrande's
sentencing hearing, said later he was hoping Duggan would give
her at least six months in prison.
"It (15 months) sends a good message to the community," Burton
added.
DeGrande, 45, who was unavailable for comment after the court
hearing, told Duggan that she "apologizes for my actions."
"I pray that one day I may be forgiven," she added.
Still awaiting trial this year in the case are two former East
Detroit superintendents, a former Clintondale schools
superintendent, two former East Detroit trustees, a former East
Detroit school employee and several construction contractors.
A federal indictment issued last year accused 16 people of
bilking taxpayers in the two Macomb County school districts of
at least $3 million in bribes and kickbacks.
The mastermind behind the scheme, according to the government's
charges, was Shelby Township businessman William J. Hudson Jr.,
the construction manager of several projects in both school
districts. Hudson, one of the 17 charged, has pleaded innocent.
Assistant U.S. Attorney John Engstrom, in a sentencing
memorandum in DeGrande's case, described her as "Hudson's foot
soldier on the (East Detroit) board."
Her lawyer, Martin Crandall, asked the judge Wednesday for
leniency because she is the sole support of her disabled husband
and a disabled teen-aged daughter. DeGrande works as a medical
assistant.
"I have no doubt (DeGrande's family) would suffer if she were
incarcerated," Duggan said. But, he added, "it would send the
wrong message" to give her probation.
DeGrande also must perform 400 hours of community service during
a two-year probationary period after her release from prison,
and make restitution to East Detroit schools.
You can reach Mike Wowk at (586) 468-0343 or
mwowk@detnews.com.
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