ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – Federal prosecutors are working to show how a former state representative and Albuquerque Public School administrator used both of her positions of authority to expand her reach as she stole millions meant for student learning programs.
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Thursday’s testimony began to reveal how Sheryl Williams Stapleton, the former director of APS’s Career and Technical Education programs, used her influence to steer federal grant money to her friend’s business, which prosecutors said was the company she used to steal from the federal grant.
Jurors heard from a New Mexico Public Education Department (PED) official who oversaw the distribution of the federal grant, known as the Perkins Fund, which is at the center of the case. Perkins Funds are dispensed annually by the U.S. Department of Education to all states specifically for CTE programs of a wide variety. During Stapleton’s time as an administrator, APS was granted roughly $1 million per year. Stapleton was in charge of doling out that funding…