This came after a lawyer representing Vera Liddell, the former Illinois school cafeteria consultant who was sentenced to 9 years in prison.
“She’s just a little sweetheart that’s got a gambling problem,” her attorney, Patrick O’Byrne, recently told PEOPLE. “She feels beyond terrible about this. This is totally uncharacteristic of her. It was the disease taking over.”
On Aug. 9, the 68-year-old woman pleaded guilty to one count of felony theft of more than $1 million and was sentenced to nine years in prison, according to the Cook County’s Sixth Municipal District Circuit Court clerk’s office.
Lidell was working as a cafeteria consultant for an Illinois school district at the time of the theft, which occurred between July 2020 and February 2022, according to her other lawyer, Gregory LaPapa. The lawyer says the chicken wings were intended for underprivileged children receiving free lunches during the pandemic shutdown.
According to O’Byrne, Liddell made false orders of chicken wings, which she then resold, and then gambled away the proceeds. Records obtained by PEOPLE show that she struggled financially, filing for bankruptcy at least twice in Chicago courts in 2009 and 2016.