Epic Charter Schools co-founders, former CFO arrested on racketeering charges
The founders of Epic Charter Schools and their longtime chief financial officer have been arrested on racketeering charges after a years-long probe of reported embezzlement and other misappropriation of state taxpayer funds.
Co-founders David Chaney, 43, and Ben Harris, 46, as well as Josh Brock, 40, were arrested by the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation on Thursday morning and booked into the Oklahoma County Detention Center on a host of alleged violations related to the state’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, commonly referred to as RICO.
Bonds for the three were set at $250,000 each.
The scheme is alleged to have cost the state of Oklahoma more than $22 million.
A damning October 2020 investigative audit by the state auditor and inspector found tens of millions of dollars in excessive administrative spending and questionable handling by EYS of $145 million in taxpayer funds budgeted for Epic student learning needs over a five-year period.
On Thursday, OSBI said their investigation found a “complicated criminal enterprise” that involved among other things: co-mingling of funds, excessive and unnecessary management fees, the use of Oklahoma tax dollars in California for a charter school Chaney and Harris founded there and to fund extensive political influencing here in Oklahoma, the concealment of profits, submission of false invoices to the state, and the illegal use of public employees for their private company.
