Well, the federal chickens have finally come home to roost for the former director of the East St. Louis Public Library as well as for the City of East St. Louis in their Housing Authority whistleblower retaliation lawsuit.
Kenyada T. Harris, the former ESL Public Library Director, has been sentenced to 15 months in prison after admitting to embezzling more than $91,000 from the library, as well as $10,000 from the Illinois Department of Human Services.
Harris, 42, pleaded guilty in March, to eight counts of wire fraud, theft from federally funded programs, as well as bank fraud.
U.S. Attorney Steven D. Weinhoeft got it right in his statement regarding the Kenyada T. Harris sentencing when he said “Those who abuse a position of trust and steal taxpayer funds must be held accountable. Public resources belong to the community, not to those who believe they are above the law.”
Court documents reveal that between March 2022 and March 2023 Harris was employed as a Public Aid Eligibility Assistant at the St. Clair County Family Community Resource Center through the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS).
Her job was to replace lost, stolen or damaged LINK cards. However, instead, she used 98 cards for the benefit of herself, family, friends resulting in the loss of over $10,000 to the IDHS.
If that were not enough, Harris redoubled her thievery after being appointed to the position of ESL Public Library Director in March of 2023. Then, from July 3, 2023 to June 6, 2024. Harris knowingly used the Library’s credit card to make personal purchases, including repairs to her personal vehicle, as well as to obtain cash advances, totaling nearly $92,000, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Illinois.
And had Harris been a librarian who actually reads, she would have known that one of the previous library directors, Marlon P. Bush, was sentenced to 12 months in federal prison, back in 2018; also for embezzling funds with the library’s credit card.
The Library’s Board should also be held accountable for being fiscally inept and asleep at the wheel, after one previous conviction of a director and for not scrutinizing purchases made on the library’s credit card.
That brings us to the East St. Louis Housing Authority and a recent federal sanctioning of the city East St. Louis and City Manager Robert Betts, after finding them culpable in obstructing discovery and their “flagrant bad faith” in the discovery process.
This comes after HUD threatened sanctions and/or federal oversight, back in 2024, due to accusations of mismanagement of ESL public housing, including five changes in leadership, between 2023 and 2024.
One concern included ESL City Manager Robert Betts applying for the position of ESLHA executive director, only to withdraw his application after scrutiny of the process and an April 29, 2024 and a warning letter from William O. Dawson, the director of the Chicago regional office of HUD to ESL Mayor Charles Powell III.
However, the obstruction claims were, by and large, fueled by a whistleblower and former ESLHA board member, Shonte Mueller and her husband, Nicholas Mueller, a 31-year ESL police veteran, who claimed that they were forced out of their respective positions in retaliation for raising claims that the interim director of the housing authority was not following federal regulations and guidelines.
As a result, Judge David W. Dugan recently entered a default judgment against the city of East St. Louis and City Manager Robert Betts, on all claims against them, in addition to $10,871 in sanctions due to “repeated and willful disregard of explicit court orders, deadlines…”
This is also not the ESLHA’s first rodeo with public housing malfeasance, after being under the longest federal receivership in history (32 years) from October, 1985 to September, 2017.
In the meantime, East St. Louis residents continue to be the victims of the brazen criminality, thievery, ineptitude, malfeasance and moral decay by those in positions of authority.
U.S. Attorney Steven D. Weinhoeft got it right in his statement regarding the Kenyada T. Harris sentencing when he said “Those who abuse a position of trust and steal taxpayer funds must be held accountable. Public resources belong to the community, not to those who believe they are above the law.”
I only hope that, as the federal roundup continues, that the paddy wagon is big enough to accommodate every “public serpent” who refuses to learn that lesson.
James T. Ingram, an East St. Louis native and writer, covers the Illinois political scene.