Sounds like the educator had no clothes.

This morning the AJC goes into great detail about the indictment released against former DeKalb Superintendent Crawford Lewis and his administrative peers.   And instead of being a ring-leader, Lewis comes off more like a pawn in his COO’s construction money game.

In a 127-page indictment handed down Wednesday, Lewis is portrayed as a superintendent who turned a blind eye to violations of district policy and state law, compromising himself for little in return.

If Lewis was a secondary figure, his former chief operating officer, Patricia “Pat” Reid, has been painted as the star of this unfolding drama — a construction expert who duped school board members and steered work to her husband.

The article reads like something straight off the Elizabethan stage.

The AJC reports…

Former DeKalb County schools superintendent Crawford Lewis and three others, including former chief operating officer Patricia Reid, have been indicted on charges they ran a criminal enterprise that sent millions of dollars to Reid’s then-husband and others.

In exchange for steering school construction work to Reid’s former husband and other vendors, the school officials and Reid’s secretary received cash, sports tickets or other perks, DeKalb District Attorney Gwen Keyes Fleming announced Wednesday.

More HERE.  And even more on Atlanta Unfiltered.

From the AJC’s Megan Matteucci…

The DeKalb County school board voted unanimously today to terminate superintendent Crawford Lewis.

“We invoked the termination for convenience,” board chairman Tom Bowen said. “The board and the superintendent mutually agreed this is what is best for the system to move forward.”

Lewis agreed to walk away with four months of severance pay – about $85,000, as outlined in his contract. The agreement allows Lewis, a DeKalb schools employee for 33 years, to retire, Bowen said.

The embattled Super was in the midst of an investigation into “wrong-doings” surrounding DeKalb school construction projects.

Kids, don’t try this at home.  Or at school for that matter.

UPDATE: WABE’s Charles Edwards has posted a pic from the scene where police are STILL inside Lewis’ home.  The raid started at 7am, according to Edwards.

Whoa.  From the AJC…

The DeKalb school board chairman says Superintendent Crawford Lewis is cooperating with investigators as they search his home and three school offices.

The search is part of an ongoing criminal investigation into multimillion-dollar school construction projects.

The DeKalb district attorney’s office served a search warrant at Lewis’ home in the Southland subdivision in Stone Mountain around 7:30 this morning. Around the same time, investigators showed up at the DeKalb school headquarters on North Decatur Road with a second search warrant.

Investigators are now searching the two school board buildings on North Decatur Road and the Sam Moss Service Center on Montreal Road in Tucker, said Orzy Theus, a spokesman for the district attorney.

Other than the tipped-off AJC, it sounds like this has taken everyone by surprise.  Burrell Ellis showed up at the scene and asked the AJC what was up.  The DeKalb Board of Ed is holding an emergency meeting tomorrow morning at 9am.

Geez a-loo.

I’ve learned many things about myself in the 2+ years of writing this blog.

And one of them is that while I may admittedly feel that left-leaning guilt on many social issues, I’m not married to any political party.  Instead, my most fundamental beliefs seem to congregate around the importance of local communities and a need for civil discourse between parties.

So imagine my total lack of surprise this morning when I “opened” AJC.com to see a lack of “communication” cited as the given reason for one of DeKalb’s most recent blow-ups.

In a great piece about DeKalb County Schools recent meltdown over the Superintendent Crawford Lewis’ $15,000 salary increase – you heard about teachers’ black outfits and shouting at school board meetings haven’t you? – Kristen Torres reports…

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