Chicago Sun Times reporter Dan Mihalopoulos managed to get a copy of the federal search warrant executed on 19 Concept Schools and its related businesses on June 4, 2014.
The contents of the warrant are explosive indeed – granting the feds access to computers and related records, financial records including all bank deposits, telephone records, and contents of storage lockers – which led to the feds carting off 48 boxes of information from one storage locker location.
One of the guys listed in the warrant, the owner of Cambridge Technologies of Chesterland, Ohio, Stephen Draviam, is apparently someone who has been the subject of past criminal investigations. In particular and as detailed in an excerpt from a 2005 Cleveland Scene article, Draviam allegedly solicited school internet and wireless service contracts in exchange for anticipated kickbacks. Considering Draviam’s business contracted with Concept Schools and his reputation for kickback solicitation, it’s not hard to imagine that Draviam was likewise throwing money at the Gulenists to get his hands on some very lucrative contracts using federal grant funding.
Below is the excerpt taken from the story and the entire contents can be read at the following link (http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/city-for-sale/Content?oid=1491411):
“Take the case of Stephen Draviam, a Cleveland consultant who worked for two Chicago companies that provided internet and wireless services to schools. According to the affidavit, Draviam approached someone identified only as Confidential Source 2 in 2001, saying he was "willing to pay the necessary kickbacks" in order to obtain a school contract.
Ironically, the mayor's office took control of Cleveland schools after the school board was deemed too corrupt and incompetent to manage the district.
The informant set up a meeting with Gray through Mohammed Saedi of Solon, who was then president of United Wireless. The four men soon met at the Beachwood restaurant Moxie -- a meeting monitored by the FBI.
Gray told Draviam that "the next school year contract is theirs as long as they make the 'right people happy,'" according to the affidavit. Gray also bragged that he could get similar contracts in Detroit schools.
"Detroit is mine," he said at one point. The "contract is yours if you want it."
Gray would later boast that he had the District of Columbia schools in his pocket as well.
Perhaps indicative of Gray's power in Cleveland, he told Draviam not to call school officials. And when Draviam said his clients would come to Cleveland to give a presentation, Gray told him not to bother. What really mattered were the kickbacks Draviam was willing to pay.
Over the subsequent months, the four men frequently discussed various bribes, ranging from 6.5 to 10 percent of the contract per school -- depending upon how many of the city's 120 schools Gray could include in the deal. The FBI estimated that Gray's cut would be about $6,500 per school. But unbeknownst to the men involved, Confidential Source 2 was taping many of their phone calls.
In one recorded call, Saedi told the informant that he and Gray would have to share their cut with a third person, who is never named. "There's another person involved that we have to take care of . . .," he said.
Eventually, Draviam, Gray, and the informant flew to Chicago to meet with company officials. They were accompanied by lawyer Ricardo Teamor, a close friend of White, who has since pleaded guilty in another bribery case. The informant described Teamor as "very slick" and obviously "the brains behind the operation," according to the affidavit. During the trip, Teamor seemed to be probing the Chicago businessmen and the informant to see whether they could be trusted.
The deal was eventually set up to make the bribe appear as a "commission" paid to United Wireless, which was run by Saedi. But somewhere along the line, Saedi grew to distrust Draviam, complaining that his work was slow and sloppy. "I don't have time for this fucking bullshit . . .," Saedi says in one recorded call.
However, it was Draviam who should have been worried about his new partners. "Saedi told CS-2 that it is common for Gray and Teamor to try and cut people out of contract deals," the affidavit says.
In the end, the scheme was never executed. "CS-2 advised that Saedi and Gray must have decided to cut Draviam and CS-2 out of the contract and do the deal directly," Agent Oliver wrote.
When contacted last week, Draviam admitted to his friendship with Saedi, and that "maybe I did go to Moxie's restaurant." But he said he never had any dealings with Cleveland officials. "I don't remember anything specific with the Cleveland schools."
He then abruptly cut off the conversation, saying he would call back. He never did.”
I have a feeling that Draviam is not presently and “abruptly cutting off conversations” with the feds, as a matter of fact -- I predict that this less than stellar character will roll on the Gulenists because there truly is no honor among thieves.
Below is Dan Mihalopoulos’ story on the Concept Schools’ FBI warrant:
http://politics.suntimes.com/article/chicago/search-warrants-reveal-details-fbi-raid-concept-schools/mon-07212014-622pm
Search warrants reveal details of FBI raid of Concept Schools Mon, 07/21/2014 - 6:22pm
Dan Mihalopoulos
@dmihalopoulos | Email
The recent FBI raid at the Des Plaines headquarters of Concept Schools focused on many of the politically connected charter-school operator’s top administrators and companies with close ties to Concept, according to federal documents obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Authorities last month said FBI agents carried out raids at 19 Concept locations in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio as part of an “ongoing white-collar crime matter” but declined to provide further details of their investigation.
Copies of the search warrants that FBI agents served in Des Plaines and a subpoena seeking records show investigators went hunting for a wide range of documents pertaining to Concept president Sedat Duman, founder Taner Ertekin and other current and former executives of the fast-growing charter network.
The investigators also sought documents about companies that were hired by Concept to perform work under the federal “E-Rate” program, which pays for schools to expand telecommunications and Internet access.
Concept is linked to the Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania, and has developed strong relationships with many local politicians, including state House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago).
Four of Concept’s 30 publicly financed schools are in Illinois, including the 600-student Chicago Math and Science Academy in Rogers Park and two campuses that opened a year ago in the Austin and McKinley Park neighborhoods. Chicago Public Schools officials approved another two Concept schools on the South Side for the 2014-15 school year.
For one of the two newest Concept sites, in Chatham, more than $528,000 in public funding was earmarked to pay rent for the coming school year to an arm of Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church. The church’s pastor, the Rev. Charles Jenkins, gave the invocation at Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s 2011 swearing-in and served on Emanuel’s transition team.
Work on the Chatham project stopped recently, although Ald. Howard Brookins – who initially supported the new school in his 21st Ward – said Jenkins told him federal authorities were probing an outside vendor of the charter network and “not investigating Concept itself.”
The federal documents obtained by the Sun-Times, however, reveal that the FBI is taking a close look at the operations of Concept.
Federal law enforcement authorities in Cleveland, who are leading the probe, sent a grand-jury subpoena to Concept on May 30. The subpoena gave the charter chain’s administrators until June 17 to provide a long list of records.
Concept did not receive the full time to turn over the records. Instead, shortly after 2 p.m. on June 4, a federal judge in Chicago approved three warrants to raid the charter network’s headquarters at 2250 E. Devon in the O’Hare Lake Office Complex.
Later that day, after normal business hours, agents arrived at the office park in Des Plaines where Concept has three suites.
The warrant gave agents the right to take any documents relating to Concept’s involvement in the E-Rate program as well as “all bank records,” “all general ledgers,” “all calendars,” “all documents related to employee travel” and “all telephone records, telephone lists and contact lists.”
At 9:29 p.m. on June 4, a Concept executive gave the key to a storage unit on Mannheim Road in Des Plaines to FBI agent Brian Murphy. From the storage unit, the agent seized “48 boxes of vendor records, business records and documents,” records show.
According to court records, investigators also were looking to take every record related to 13 Concept employees and companies. They included Duman, the current Concept president; chief information officer Huseyin Ulker, and Ertekin, who founded the charter chain in Ohio in the late 1990s. He now works in the United Arab Emirates, according to his online LinkedIn profile.
The warrant goes on to specify that the federal agents wanted “all personnel documents for Huseyin Ulker and Sedat Duman, including but not limited to documents reflecting their compensation
packages.”
Among contractors mentioned in the warrant were:
He said he provided records regarding E-Rate work his company performed for Concept more than five years ago, but the agents did not indicate the target of their investigation. The federal government's guidelines for E-Rate state that schools must choose companies to do work under the program through a "competitive bidding process" that is "open and fair."
Vicki Anderson, a special agent in the FBI’s office in Cleveland, declined to comment on the warrants.
At the time of the June 4 raids, Anderson had said all documents related to the investigation were sealed from public view. The Sun-Times obtained the warrants and other documents from the raid in Des Plaines through a state Freedom of Information Act request to Concept.
Concept officials have said they were cooperating with the investigation and would not make any further comment.
http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/city-for-sale/Content?oid=1491411
The contents of the warrant are explosive indeed – granting the feds access to computers and related records, financial records including all bank deposits, telephone records, and contents of storage lockers – which led to the feds carting off 48 boxes of information from one storage locker location.
One of the guys listed in the warrant, the owner of Cambridge Technologies of Chesterland, Ohio, Stephen Draviam, is apparently someone who has been the subject of past criminal investigations. In particular and as detailed in an excerpt from a 2005 Cleveland Scene article, Draviam allegedly solicited school internet and wireless service contracts in exchange for anticipated kickbacks. Considering Draviam’s business contracted with Concept Schools and his reputation for kickback solicitation, it’s not hard to imagine that Draviam was likewise throwing money at the Gulenists to get his hands on some very lucrative contracts using federal grant funding.
Below is the excerpt taken from the story and the entire contents can be read at the following link (http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/city-for-sale/Content?oid=1491411):
“Take the case of Stephen Draviam, a Cleveland consultant who worked for two Chicago companies that provided internet and wireless services to schools. According to the affidavit, Draviam approached someone identified only as Confidential Source 2 in 2001, saying he was "willing to pay the necessary kickbacks" in order to obtain a school contract.
Ironically, the mayor's office took control of Cleveland schools after the school board was deemed too corrupt and incompetent to manage the district.
The informant set up a meeting with Gray through Mohammed Saedi of Solon, who was then president of United Wireless. The four men soon met at the Beachwood restaurant Moxie -- a meeting monitored by the FBI.
Gray told Draviam that "the next school year contract is theirs as long as they make the 'right people happy,'" according to the affidavit. Gray also bragged that he could get similar contracts in Detroit schools.
"Detroit is mine," he said at one point. The "contract is yours if you want it."
Gray would later boast that he had the District of Columbia schools in his pocket as well.
Perhaps indicative of Gray's power in Cleveland, he told Draviam not to call school officials. And when Draviam said his clients would come to Cleveland to give a presentation, Gray told him not to bother. What really mattered were the kickbacks Draviam was willing to pay.
Over the subsequent months, the four men frequently discussed various bribes, ranging from 6.5 to 10 percent of the contract per school -- depending upon how many of the city's 120 schools Gray could include in the deal. The FBI estimated that Gray's cut would be about $6,500 per school. But unbeknownst to the men involved, Confidential Source 2 was taping many of their phone calls.
In one recorded call, Saedi told the informant that he and Gray would have to share their cut with a third person, who is never named. "There's another person involved that we have to take care of . . .," he said.
Eventually, Draviam, Gray, and the informant flew to Chicago to meet with company officials. They were accompanied by lawyer Ricardo Teamor, a close friend of White, who has since pleaded guilty in another bribery case. The informant described Teamor as "very slick" and obviously "the brains behind the operation," according to the affidavit. During the trip, Teamor seemed to be probing the Chicago businessmen and the informant to see whether they could be trusted.
The deal was eventually set up to make the bribe appear as a "commission" paid to United Wireless, which was run by Saedi. But somewhere along the line, Saedi grew to distrust Draviam, complaining that his work was slow and sloppy. "I don't have time for this fucking bullshit . . .," Saedi says in one recorded call.
However, it was Draviam who should have been worried about his new partners. "Saedi told CS-2 that it is common for Gray and Teamor to try and cut people out of contract deals," the affidavit says.
In the end, the scheme was never executed. "CS-2 advised that Saedi and Gray must have decided to cut Draviam and CS-2 out of the contract and do the deal directly," Agent Oliver wrote.
When contacted last week, Draviam admitted to his friendship with Saedi, and that "maybe I did go to Moxie's restaurant." But he said he never had any dealings with Cleveland officials. "I don't remember anything specific with the Cleveland schools."
He then abruptly cut off the conversation, saying he would call back. He never did.”
I have a feeling that Draviam is not presently and “abruptly cutting off conversations” with the feds, as a matter of fact -- I predict that this less than stellar character will roll on the Gulenists because there truly is no honor among thieves.
Below is Dan Mihalopoulos’ story on the Concept Schools’ FBI warrant:
http://politics.suntimes.com/article/chicago/search-warrants-reveal-details-fbi-raid-concept-schools/mon-07212014-622pm
Search warrants reveal details of FBI raid of Concept Schools Mon, 07/21/2014 - 6:22pm
Dan Mihalopoulos
@dmihalopoulos | Email
The recent FBI raid at the Des Plaines headquarters of Concept Schools focused on many of the politically connected charter-school operator’s top administrators and companies with close ties to Concept, according to federal documents obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times.
Authorities last month said FBI agents carried out raids at 19 Concept locations in Illinois, Indiana and Ohio as part of an “ongoing white-collar crime matter” but declined to provide further details of their investigation.
Copies of the search warrants that FBI agents served in Des Plaines and a subpoena seeking records show investigators went hunting for a wide range of documents pertaining to Concept president Sedat Duman, founder Taner Ertekin and other current and former executives of the fast-growing charter network.
The investigators also sought documents about companies that were hired by Concept to perform work under the federal “E-Rate” program, which pays for schools to expand telecommunications and Internet access.
Concept is linked to the Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen, who lives in Pennsylvania, and has developed strong relationships with many local politicians, including state House Speaker Michael Madigan (D-Chicago).
Four of Concept’s 30 publicly financed schools are in Illinois, including the 600-student Chicago Math and Science Academy in Rogers Park and two campuses that opened a year ago in the Austin and McKinley Park neighborhoods. Chicago Public Schools officials approved another two Concept schools on the South Side for the 2014-15 school year.
For one of the two newest Concept sites, in Chatham, more than $528,000 in public funding was earmarked to pay rent for the coming school year to an arm of Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church. The church’s pastor, the Rev. Charles Jenkins, gave the invocation at Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s 2011 swearing-in and served on Emanuel’s transition team.
Work on the Chatham project stopped recently, although Ald. Howard Brookins – who initially supported the new school in his 21st Ward – said Jenkins told him federal authorities were probing an outside vendor of the charter network and “not investigating Concept itself.”
The federal documents obtained by the Sun-Times, however, reveal that the FBI is taking a close look at the operations of Concept.
Federal law enforcement authorities in Cleveland, who are leading the probe, sent a grand-jury subpoena to Concept on May 30. The subpoena gave the charter chain’s administrators until June 17 to provide a long list of records.
Concept did not receive the full time to turn over the records. Instead, shortly after 2 p.m. on June 4, a federal judge in Chicago approved three warrants to raid the charter network’s headquarters at 2250 E. Devon in the O’Hare Lake Office Complex.
Later that day, after normal business hours, agents arrived at the office park in Des Plaines where Concept has three suites.
The warrant gave agents the right to take any documents relating to Concept’s involvement in the E-Rate program as well as “all bank records,” “all general ledgers,” “all calendars,” “all documents related to employee travel” and “all telephone records, telephone lists and contact lists.”
At 9:29 p.m. on June 4, a Concept executive gave the key to a storage unit on Mannheim Road in Des Plaines to FBI agent Brian Murphy. From the storage unit, the agent seized “48 boxes of vendor records, business records and documents,” records show.
According to court records, investigators also were looking to take every record related to 13 Concept employees and companies. They included Duman, the current Concept president; chief information officer Huseyin Ulker, and Ertekin, who founded the charter chain in Ohio in the late 1990s. He now works in the United Arab Emirates, according to his online LinkedIn profile.
The warrant goes on to specify that the federal agents wanted “all personnel documents for Huseyin Ulker and Sedat Duman, including but not limited to documents reflecting their compensation
packages.”
Among contractors mentioned in the warrant were:
- Advanced Solutions for Education of Schaumburg and company founder Ozgur Balsoy, who used to be administrator of a Concept-run school in Columbus, Ohio. The company was the consultant to Concept on applications for E-Rate funding, according to the federal program’s records.
- Arlington Heights-based Core Group Inc. and its president Ertugrul Gurbuz. Core is described in federal records as performing much of the work for Concept under the E-Rate program.
- Signature Maker Inc. of Hoffman Estates and president Ergun Koyuncu.
- Cambridge Technologies of Chesterland, Ohio and owner Stephen Draviam.
He said he provided records regarding E-Rate work his company performed for Concept more than five years ago, but the agents did not indicate the target of their investigation. The federal government's guidelines for E-Rate state that schools must choose companies to do work under the program through a "competitive bidding process" that is "open and fair."
Vicki Anderson, a special agent in the FBI’s office in Cleveland, declined to comment on the warrants.
At the time of the June 4 raids, Anderson had said all documents related to the investigation were sealed from public view. The Sun-Times obtained the warrants and other documents from the raid in Des Plaines through a state Freedom of Information Act request to Concept.
Concept officials have said they were cooperating with the investigation and would not make any further comment.
http://www.clevescene.com/cleveland/city-for-sale/Content?oid=1491411
