Center for Community Academic Success Partnerships
Outcome
Barbara Harris, former Executive Director, pleaded guilty in February 2025 to wire fraud for misappropriating approximately $1.8 million in Illinois State Board of Education grant funds intended for after-school youth programs.
Details
Center for Community Academic Success Partnerships — Grant Misappropriation (2012–2017)
Outcome: Barbara Harris, former Executive Director, pleaded guilty on February 27, 2025 to wire fraud for misappropriating approximately $1.8 million in Illinois State Board of Education grant funds, with sentencing set for July 11, 2025.
Center for Community Academic Success Partnerships (CCASP) was a Chicago-area nonprofit that received state and federal grant funds to provide after-school programs at schools in the Chicago area. From 2012 to 2017, Executive Director Barbara Harris and co-executive Tony Bell submitted grant applications that inflated CCASP's projected annual expenses and falsely claimed the organization would receive services from five subcontractors.
In reality, none of the subcontractors provided actual services to CCASP. Two of the named subcontractors were other nonprofits controlled by Harris and Bell themselves — a direct self-dealing conflict of interest. The fraudulent scheme resulted in approximately $1.8 million in losses to the Illinois State Board of Education, which had awarded the grants to support underprivileged youth.
Harris also separately defrauded the federal AmeriCorps VISTA program between 2021 and 2023 while serving as co-executive director of South Suburban Community Services, submitting false grant applications that misrepresented how 11 VISTA members would be deployed, causing an additional $98,699 in losses to the federal program.
Co-defendant Tony Bell, 64, of Matteson, pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy, money laundering, and wire fraud and was awaiting trial as of early 2025. Harris faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in federal prison.
Primary Source: Former Executive of Chicago-Area Non-Profit Pleads Guilty in $1.8 Million Fraud Scheme
How Crucible Prevents This
Automated grant expenditure reconciliation controls would have flagged payments to shell subcontractors controlled by executives. A financial self-dealing check on vendor ownership records tied to board/executive personnel would have caught the conflict of interest before millions were diverted. Segregation-of-duties enforcement and periodic third-party audit reminders are direct Crucible Municipal compliance controls for nonprofits receiving public grant funds.
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