“I’ll Pay For The Wings” – Chiefs Star Chris Jones Offers To Pay $1.5 Million To Free Illinois School Worker Sentenced to 9 Years For Stealing Chicken Wings

A chicken wing heist for the ages – until she got caught.

An Illinois school worker by the name of Vera Lidell was recently caught in a scheme that saw her secretly steal $1.5 million dollars in food from the Havery School District in Dolton, Illinois. Lidell was the Director of Food Services, which is how she orchestrated the food caper – which was reportedly mostly chicken wings.

It’s estimated that around 11,000 cases of wings were ordered through the school district, and the orders for the extra items were always placed separately from the actual food orders for the school system. All of this allegedly took place between July 2020 and February 2022, and it’s believed that Lidell acted alone in the scheme.

When the charges were officially filed, the prosecutors used this statement to explain how Lidell went about falsely securing the chicken wings through the district’s food provider – Gordon Food Service:

“The massive fraud began at the height of COVID during a time when students were not allowed to be physically present in school. Even though the children were learning remotely, the school district continued to provide meals for the students that their families could pick up. The food was never brought to the school or provided to the students.”

That’s because the 68-year-old Director of Food Services would transport the additional food orders (using the school district’s cargo vans) to other places and sell them for a profit. She was caught thanks to an audit that discovered the district was hundreds of thousands of dollars over their annual food budget – through half of the year.

Lidell was arrested and charged with forgery, felony theft, and continuing a financial crime enterprise. All of those things led to her receiving a nine-year prison sentence, and as you might imagine, the scope and uniqueness of the story also led the former Director of Food Services to go viral online (mainly from people clicking on a link asking, “How do you steal $1.5 million in chicken wings?”).

But hey! The tide might be turning thanks to a shoutout from Kansas City Chiefs star defensive end Chris Jones. Remember the guy who sat out at the beginning of last season, demanded more money, and then eventually got a boatload of money? Part of his five-year, $158 million contract extension is apparently being leveraged in this chicken wing story.

He’s trying to pay the difference for what Lidell stole in chicken wings in order to get her out:

“I’ll pay for the wings that she stole to get her free.”

I don’t think that’s exactly how that works, but it will be interesting to see what comes from this – if anything. A woman going to prison for stealing chicken wings is a great headline in its own right, but a star NFL player paying the difference to get her out would do wonders on the internet.

It’s a bold strategy cotton… let’s see how it plays out.