Kansas City Chiefs player Chris Jones took to X, formally Twitter, to say he will pay the $1.5 million in chicken wings stolen by a Illinois school worker in an effort to secure her release from prison, according to reports.
Vera Liddell, 68, who served as a food service director in Chicago, stole $1.5 million worth of chicken wings between 2020 and 2022.
She pleaded guilty to felony theft and was sentenced to nine years in prison last week.
On Tuesday, following the announcement of her sentencing, Jones, the Chiefs star defensive tackle, is offering to pay $1.5 million to free her.
"I'll pay for the wings that she stole to get her free," Jones said in the post.
Inside Edition Digital has reached out to both Jones and his representative for comment and if this offer is true and has not heard back.
Liddell, a food service director for Harvey 125 school, just outside Chicago , was charged with felony continuing financial crimes enterprise and theft exceeding $1,000,000, also a felony, according to state’s Attorney’s Office in 2023.
“The massive fraud began at the height of COVID during a time when students were not allowed to be physically present in school,” according to a bond proffer obtained by Inside Edition Digital in January 2023 . “Even though the children were learning remotely, the school district continued to provide meals for the students that their families could pick up.”
From July 2020 until February 2022, Liddell allegedly placed hundreds of unauthorized orders for food items – including 11,000 cases of chicken wings – through school district vendor Gordon Food Service, according to the state’s Attorney’s Office.
The purchases were allegedly made separately from the legitimate orders made by the school district but Gordon Food Service believed all the purchases were authorized and billed the district for everything, prosecutors said.
The district paid the full bills including the unauthorized purchases, according to prosecutors.
In January 2022, the district business manager conducted a routine mid-year audit and discovered the food service department at the half-way mark of the school year was more than $300,000 over its annual budget, prosecutors said.
An investigation uncovered individual invoices signed by Liddell for massive quantities of chicken wings, prosecutors said.
The school district does not even serve chicken wings to students, as they contain bones, prosecutors said.
Surveillance video obtained by the Attorney’s Office allegedly showed that Liddell arrived at Gordon Food Service to pick up the orders and would leave with it in a district cargo van. The food, however, was never brought to the school or the students, prosecutors said.
Liddell has worked in the Harvey School District 152 for 11 years, according to her LinkedIn profile found by Inside Edition Digital.
The guilty plea was part of a deal reached with the prosecutor’s office, one of her lawyers Patrick O’Byrne, told The New York Times .
O’Byrne told The New York Times that Ms. Liddell expressed “a great deal of remorse” for her actions.
“She feels incredibly distraught, terrible about what she did,” he added. “She can’t even believe she did it.”
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