BOONE COUNTY, W.Va.—– The former maintenance director at Boone County Schools is in custody after a federal grand jury returned an 18-count indictment Tuesday that alleges the director defrauded the county’s Board of Education out of $3.4 million.
Michael David Barker, 47, has been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, 11 counts of mail fraud, three counts of concerning programs receiving federal funds, and three counts of money laundering.
Barker is accused of falsifying documents, from March 2020 to December 2023, showing that the Boone County Board of Education was receiving large amounts of janitorial products including hand soap, trash can liners, and face masks from Rush Enterprises in Kentucky. The owner of Rush Enterprises is Jesse Marks, who was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in Barker’s indictment, allegedly conspired with Barker to overbill the board and split the difference for the undelivered products and split the proceeds.
Will Thompson
After the board would write these checks for the undelivered products to Rush Enterprises, Marks would deposit those checks into his bank account, then wrote himself personal checks and then cashed those in at multiple different banks around Boone.
At a press conference Wednesday afternoon, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of West Virginia, Will Thompson said that he felt obligated to let the public know what was going on with the case since it deals with public funds.
“It’s been a practice of mine since I’ve took into office, not to press conference on indictments,” Thompson. “However, given the fact there was a substantial amount of public money that is allegedly involved and affecting school children I think it’s my job to make the public aware of the indictment and the arrest.”
The investigation into the fraud started in November of last year and Thompson said that while the initial concern came from the state Board of Education, he said that there were a few other people who also reached out because they were concerned with what was going on.
State Auditor JB McCuskey said during the press conference that this type of case hurts the trust between the public and government officials especially since it deals with money.
“This is an area when you’re dealing with the public’s money, and I say this all the time, that the government doesn’t make money the government takes your money and spends it on your behalf, and when people betray that trust it’s a problem that is much larger than simple theft, it’s a problem that ends with the erosion of public’s confidence in what we do, public confidence in government,” McCuskey said.
JB McCuskey
He also said that the auditor’s office is doing everything they can to protect the public’s money especially in serious fraud cases like this.
“We are doing what we can to protect the public treasury,” McCuskey said. “And in this instance these allegations are incredibly serious. as we know we have enormous budgetary problems within the state, especially as it relates to our school, so even a little bit of money is a huge problem, and this is not a small amount of money that’s been alleged.”
Supervisory Special Agent for the Charleston FBI office Tony Rausa said that this didn’t just take money from the Boone County BOE, but it also hurts the students.
“It’s egregious, what was stolen, what was taken is egregious,” Rausa said. “And every year students show up to Boone County and other counties across the state and teachers are essentially begging parents and students to bring in supplies.”
In one instance, Barker allegedly, during the 2022-2023 school year, submitted invoices to the BOE that caused them pay for 4,993 cases of hand soap that they had never received. They paid approximately over $400,000.
Michele Blatt, state superintendent, was also at the press conference and she said that the state BOE is looking more closely at the monitoring and auditing process that they use.
“We follow not only the federal government monitoring process, but we have the audit process set up through the Department of Education and we’ve taken a hard look at that, and we are doing a lot closer examination and strengthening that,” Blatt said.
Michele Blatt
Thompson ended the press conference stating that he wants this indictment to be a message to everyone.
“That we take fraud very seriously and that we wish to hold people accountable when they steal public money,” Thompson said.
If Barker is convicted, he faces a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison for the conspiracy count and each mail fraud count, and up to 10 years in prison for each theft and money laundering count.