Former superintendents of Athens City Schools and Limestone County, along with four co-conspirators, were indicted on 124 federal charges for a scheme to fraudulently enroll stolen student identities from private schools into public virtual schools to receive $7 million in state education funding over two school years.

Athens City Schools / Limestone County School District — Virtual School Enrollment Fraud and Student Identity Theft (2016–2018)

Outcome: Former superintendents William L. Holladay III (Athens City Schools) and Thomas Michael Sisk (Limestone County), along with four co-conspirators, were indicted in February 2021 on 90 counts of wire fraud and 34 counts of identity theft for fraudulently enrolling stolen student identities from Black Belt private schools into public virtual programs to obtain $7 million in state education funds over two school years.

William L. ("Trey") Holladay III, the former superintendent of Athens City Schools, and Thomas Michael Sisk, the former superintendent of Limestone County School District, are both in the northern Alabama region. Beginning with the 2016–2017 school year and continuing through 2017–2018, they and four co-conspirators — Deborah Irby Holladay, William Richard Carter Jr., David Webb Tutt, and Gregory Earl Corkren — carried out a scheme to fraudulently inflate virtual school enrollment to obtain state per-pupil funding.

The scheme was predicated on identity theft. The conspirators obtained student identities and academic records from private schools located across Alabama — particularly private schools in the Black Belt region. They offered those private schools inducements including computers, direct payments, and access to online curriculum in exchange for sharing their students' academic records and personal identifying information. The conspirators then used those student identities to create fraudulent enrollment records in public virtual schools, reporting the private school students as enrolled public school students to the Alabama State Department of Education. The state paid per-pupil funding based on those inflated enrollment reports.

Over the two school years, the scheme generated approximately $7 million in fraudulent state education funds. The federal indictment included 90 counts of wire fraud and 34 counts of identity theft — the identity theft charges reflecting that the scheme required using real students' personal information without consent.

Three defendants pleaded guilty in the subsequent proceedings. The case is a landmark illustration of how virtual enrollment reporting systems, which rely on submitted data with limited independent verification, are vulnerable to large-scale manipulation by trusted administrators.

Primary Source: Two Former Alabama Public School Superintendents Among Six Charged with Fraud Related to Virtual Education | DOJ