School Official Convicted of Serving Students Chicken With Bits of Metal

NEW YORK — In late 2016, Somma Food Group had a problem with its chicken tenders.

New York City schools had stopped serving the savory poultry gobbets after people found foreign objects inside them. A school employee choked on a bone inside one of the supposedly boneless tenders. Then there were the reports about pieces of metal.

So, federal prosecutors said, the owners of Texas-based Somma — Blaine Iler, Michael Turley and Brian Twomey — turned for help to a senior Department of Education food official with whom they had been secretly doing business.

The owners promised tens of thousands of dollars to the official, Eric Goldstein, along with control of a second food provider called Range Meats Supply Co., prosecutors said. The tenders were soon restored to school menus, where they remained for a few months before being removed permanently. There had been new complaints that they contained metal, bones and now bits of plastic.

On Wednesday, a jury in Brooklyn convicted Goldstein of conspiracy, extortion, wire fraud and taking bribes, agreeing with prosecutors who said that he had abused his official position. After the verdict was delivered, Goldstein, sitting in the well of the courtroom next to his lawyers, rested his head in his hands and stared down at the defense table.

Iler, Turley and Twomey were convicted of conspiracy, wire fraud and bribery.

The scheme was “a textbook example of choosing greed over the needs of our schools and the well-being of our children,” Breon Peace, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said in a statement. “Today’s verdict demonstrates the consequences of corruptly placing personal profit over the public interests.”

The multiweek trial in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn included testimony by two defendants and a Department of Education ethicist. One email in evidence bore the subject line “Chickentopia chicken strip — foreign matter bone incidents.” There were also queasiness-inducing photos introduced into evidence that showed some of the food in question, including a drumstick tinged with what appeared to be a bright red liquid.

Iler, Turley and Twomey founded Somma in early 2015. Around the same time, according to prosecutors, they joined Goldstein and another partner to start Range Meats. Goldstein was then overseeing the Office of Food and Nutrition Services, known as SchoolFood, which manages breakfast and lunch operations for the city’s public schools. His 20% share in Range Meats was kept hidden, prosecutors said.

Prosecutors said SchoolFood approved Range Meats burgers for students after Turley provided samples to senior officials. Goldstein was a conspicuously enthusiastic consumer of his own product, according to evidence.

He “grabbed a sample of the burger,” Turley wrote in an email introduced by prosecutors, adding: “He soon returned for seconds and brought other folks from his office.”

Goldstein and his co-defendants participated in an “overarching quid pro quo,” prosecutors wrote in a court filing: He promoted Somma’s interests and ensured that the Department of Education bought its poultry and its yogurt parfait. In return, the Somma owners invested in Range Meats and provided Goldstein with a stream of benefits.

Iler, Turley and Twomey used the name “Roger Rabbit” to refer to Goldstein, prosecutors said, and repeatedly asked him to intervene in SchoolFood decisions. At one point, according to prosecutors, they prevailed upon him to rescind a fine that had been imposed by SchoolFood against Somma after the company failed to fulfill a drumstick delivery.

“Eric Goldstein was for sale,” a prosecutor, Laura Zuckerwise, told jurors during her summation Monday. “And Michael Turley, Blaine Iler and Brian Twomey, they bought him.”

Defense lawyers denied that Somma had bribed Goldstein, saying the company had reimbursed him for legitimate expenses. The transfer of money and ownership in Range Meats was a business agreement, those lawyers added, outlined in a contract drawn up by lawyers. And, Goldstein’s lawyer maintained, Somma’s fine was waived because it had been improperly imposed.

That lawyer, Kannan Sundaram, said Wednesday that his client was “extremely disappointed” with the verdict and would appeal if the judge did not grant a post-trial motion to acquit him. Lawyers for Iler and Turley declined to comment, and a lawyer for Twomey did not immediately reply to an email.

During the trial, Sundaram portrayed his client as an honest public servant who had disclosed his part ownership of Range Meats to the New York City Conflicts of Interest Board.

Prosecutors drew upon email messages and records of financial transactions to illustrate what they called a corrupt relationship among the defendants.

In the fall of 2015, for instance, prosecutors said, the Somma owners were frustrated that their yogurt parfait and drumsticks were not scheduled to be served until the spring of 2016.

Iler arranged to send $20,000 from a Somma bank account to a Range Meats account, then directed that $7,000 be transferred from the Range Meats account to a lawyer who had handled a divorce for Goldstein, prosecutors said. Soon after, prosecutors said, the Somma yogurt parfait was “fast-tracked.” Students started consuming it in December 2015.

Somma’s chicken tenders were also fast-tracked, prosecutors said, after Iler sent $3,000 from Range Meats to a bank account belonging to Goldstein’s father.

Later, after the reports of foreign objects and choking, Somma asked to substitute drumsticks while SchoolFood weighed the fate of its chicken tenders. Investigators said that Goldstein used his influence to delay SchoolFood’s response while he negotiated with the company’s owners over Range Meats.

After weeks of back and forth, Iler, Turley and Twomey agreed to transfer Somma’s 60% interest in Range Meats to Goldstein and wire nearly $67,000 to a bank account he controlled.

The next day, investigators said, Goldstein approved the drumstick substitution request and said that the tenders could return to school menus in about a month.

In March 2016, Somma announced in a news release that its “100% vegetable fed” antibiotic-free “Chickentopia” drumsticks from humanely treated fowl had debuted in New York City schools.

“Chickentopia aims to give customers exactly what they want,” Turley said in the news release.

This article originally appeared in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/28/nyregion/eric-goldstein-somma-chicken.html">The New York Times</a>.