After two years of reviewing evidence, hearing testimony and enduring lengthy delays, an Oklahoma County judge has decided the major embezzlement and racketeering case against the co-founders of Epic Charter School can continue to trial.
The decision from Special Judge Jason Glidewell on Thursday brought an unusually delayed preliminary hearing to its final conclusion. Glidewell determined prosecutors from the Attorney General's Office have established sufficient probable cause to bring most of the charges to trial against David Chaney and Benjamin Harris.
The judge dismissed two counts against Chaney and one against Harris while allowing most of the case's key charges to proceed.
"Mr. Chaney is encouraged by the fact that two charges against him were dismissed today," his attorney, Gary Wood, said afterward. "The state failed on two charges, and they will fail at trial on the remaining charges that are pending against him."
Harris and his attorneys left the courtroom without speaking to news reporters. The Attorney General's Office did not immediately return a request for comment after the hearing.
Chaney, 47, and Harris, 50, were charged in 2022 with a litany of financial crimes and racketeering. Prosecutors allege the co-founders engineered a complex scheme at Epic to pocket millions of taxpayer dollars intended for students.
Chaney and Harris deny any wrongdoing. Their attorneys said they followed proper business practices transparently described in public contracts with the virtual charter school.
Their business model and the public charter school were a success, their attorneys said. Epic, founded in 2011, grew into the largest public school district in Oklahoma during the COVID-19 pandemic, as families flocked to online learning. It remains the state's third-largest district.
But questions over the school's financial practices placed Epic and its co-founders at the center of criminal investigations, state auditing and heightened public scrutiny for years. The school cut ties with Harris and Chaney in 2021.
A third defendant in the case, Epic's former Chief Financial Officer Josh Brock, testified in the preliminary hearing against the co-founders as part of a plea agreement to avoid prison. Brock agreed to cooperate with the prosecution, pay restitution and spend 15 years on probation as a convicted felon.
Brock testified that he and Harris designed invoices with false itemized expenses so they could skirt state law and justify the millions of dollars Epic paid their business.
Their company not only profited from a management fee for running the charter school, but it also controlled Epic's Learning Fund account, investigators said. The school used the Learning Fund to cover the costs of each student's curriculum, learning technology and extracurricular activities.
Prosecutors failed to establish probable cause that Chaney participated in developing the false invoices, Glidewell said, so the judge dismissed a charge against him of using a computer to commit fraud.
Of the 10 counts of embezzlement against Harris and Chaney, Glidewell dismissed one — a charge of illegally sending $100,000 from the Learning Fund to Panola Public Schools, a struggling rural district the co-founders had been hired to manage.
Brock testified that he sent the $100,000 from the Learning Fund account, instead of their company's operating account, by mistake and later rectified the error.
The judge said "there was not a concerted effort to rob the Learning Fund" in this instance.
However, Glidewell decided probable cause exists for other charges of misusing the Learning Fund. The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation alleged the co-founders and Brock used Learning Fund money for personal expenses, political donations and to refill their private company's operating account.
The co-founders contend they owned the Learning Fund bank account and all the money kept within it and therefore could not embezzle it.
The judge said he declined to dismiss the charges because the public school entrusted that money to the co-founders' company to be spent on student needs. The Learning Fund's purpose "does not change based on where the money is deposited," he said during the hearing.
"The account was theirs; the money was not," Glidewell wrote in his court order.
The judge heard five days of witness testimony in March 2024 and three more days in February. Procedural disputes caused almost two years of delays in between.
The conclusion of the preliminary hearing, though a milestone, is an early step in the criminal case. A trial or another resolution still could be years away.
The case now advances to District Judge Lydia Y. Green, Glidewell's superior who would preside over the trial if the proceedings ever got that far.
Chaney and Harris are expected to appear at an arraignment June 24, four years after they were first charged and arrested, to potentially enter their first plea.
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