The Maryland State Board of Education said Montgomery County Public Schools’ electric bus contract was “tainted” by an employee later convicted of fraud.

A school district’s deal to shift to electric buses hits another bump

...The state board said it reviewed the external report conducted on behalf of the Montgomery school district that detailed how the electric-bus contract was awarded. The four-person committee was tasked with scoring the potential vendors.

The state board said that if the scores of Ewald and Watkins were excluded, Highland Electric Fleets would not have won the Montgomery contract. It alleges their involvement “at a minimum … created an appearance of impropriety.”

Ewald’s scores were not included in the report, and López referred questions about the omission to the investigator. Andrew Nussbaum, a Howard County-based attorney, did not immediately answer questions about his report...

 https://wapo.st/3JJn7yR

Breaking: @mcps Former Asst. Dir. of Transportation Charles Ewald Sentenced to 5 Years in Prison for Theft & Abuse of Position. Bought Vaca Condo w/ MCPS $$$$.

Count 1 (Theft):  15 years incarceration with all but 5 years suspended.

Count 2 (Abuse of Position) 5 years of incarceration.

Notes from today's sentencing: 

MCPS former Assistant Director of Transportation Charles Ewald was sentenced today to spend the next 5 years in prison for his theft of MCPS funds and for his abuse of his position in MCPS. 

At today's sentencing the public learned that along with all of the other things that had been reported as to how Mr. Ewald used the funds he stole from MCPS he used the funds to purchase a vacation condo in North Carolina along with luxury vehicles.

As of today, Mr. Ewald has written a check to MCPS for $250,000 in restitution for some of the funds that were stolen.  

The scheme went on for 5 years until a MCPS audit discovered credit card abuse and then the embezzlement.  

The prosecutor said that Mr. Ewald received 35 checks over the years from the school bus vendor in the embezzlement scheme. 

The prosecutor said that Mr. Ewald's SUPERVISOR (that would have been Todd Watkins) established the slush fund and Mr. Ewald took over the slush fund.  Mr. Ewald didn't just use the slush fund to line his pockets, he used it to circumvent the rules. 

The abuse of the MCPS credit cards was a whole separate scheme.  Mr. Ewald had 110 transactions over the $500 per purchase limit.  

Mr. Ewald charged $313,000 on the MCPS credit card which was nearly half of all the department charges.  

MCPS General Counsel Stephanie Williams was in the courtroom. (Note:  MCPS staff never show up for child abuse cases.)

The Judge made a statement and said that the actions of Mr. Ewald were an enormous breach of trust and impact the way people look at MCPS and our government.  His actions lead to cynical talk about government and hurt our community.