Date: April 18, 2025
Contact: newsroom@ci.irs.gov
HOUSTON — A Houston federal jury has returned guilty verdicts against the former chief operating officer of the Houston Independent School District (HISD) and an HISD contractor, announced U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei for the Southern District of Texas (SDTX).
The jury deliberated for only six hours before convicting Brian Busby and Anthony Hutchison following a four-week trial. Both were convicted of conspiracy, bribery, filing false tax returns and witness tampering. Hutchison was also convicted of seven counts of wire fraud.
Over the course of the trial, the jury heard testimony from over 50 witnesses regarding the 33 charged counts involving bribery, false invoicing schemes, witness tampering and tax violations. Five former HISD officials testified, all of whom received bribe payments - Rhonda Skillern-Jones, former HISD Board of Education president; Derrick Sanders, officer of construction services; Alfred Hoskins, general manager of facilities, maintenance and operations; Gerron Hall, area manager for maintenance – south; and Luis Tovar, area manager for maintenance - north.
They described the pressure Busby put on them to provide Hutchison’s companies more work with HISD as well as larger projects following Hurricane Harvey. They recounted how they received tens of thousands of dollars over the course of 2017 and 2018 or longer.
Skillern-Jones testified Busby told her she should use Hutchison’s company on school projects with the funds remaining from the school bond passed in 2012. They agreed that if the contract was given to Hutchison, then they could make some money off the projects. Following completion of the Holland Middle School and Pleasantville Elementary School projects, Busby met with Skillern-Jones outside of a Walmart parking lot to give her $12,000 in cash from Hutchison as the bribery payment for allocating her district’s portion of bond funds for projects Hutchison performed.
Sanders, who also socialized with Busby and Hutchison, described taking trips to Las Vegas with them where he would be paid bribes and recounted their lavish purchases. On one occasion when Hutchison paid him, he exclaimed “next,” signaling Busby to come into the room for his payment.
Hoskins testified his maintenance team did not want to use Just Construction because it was often more expensive than other vendors, but Busby pressured him to give Hutchison’s company more work. Testimony further revealed they would bypass the rotation or bid process in selecting vendors and just provide work directly to Hutchison’s companies.
The jury also saw a handwritten ledger seized from Hutchison’s residence which contained detailed notes of all HISD projects awarded to Just Construction. It included entries for bribe payments and locations where they were made.
Detailed evidence also revealed the extensive invoicing fraud scheme Hutchison perpetrated through his company Southwest Wholesale. Since 2015, Southwest Wholesale had been the exclusive mowing and landscape contractor for HISD. The jury heard testimony demonstrating how Hutchison continuously overbilled for years for the approximately 150 schools he was contracted to mow. He also similarly charged HISD over twice the cost of what he paid for the supplies and marked that inflated charge up 20%. He consistently overbilled HISD over the course of years for a loss in excess of $6 million.
Busby also made excessive cash deposits to over 18 bank accounts which was far more than his legitimate income. He attempted to explain it based on other sources of income, but the jury was not convinced it accounted for the close to $3 million cash deposits made over the course of five years that were not declared in his income tax returns for 2015-2019.
Hutchison similarly filed false tax returns in 2017 and 2018 wherein he deducted improper business expenses. Specifically, Hutchison obtained cash he used to pay bribes to HISD officials by writing company checks to vendors, who cashed the checks and provided the cash to him. He falsely stated on the memo line that they were in payment for work performed on HISD properties. He then caused the checks to be improperly deducted on corporate tax returns as business expenses. In reality, they were cashed to pay extensive gambling debts and cash bribe payments.
Hoskins also testified about the steps Busby and Hutchison took to interfere with the investigation. Specifically, Busby called Hoskins and told him to tell investigators Busby had nothing to do with the award of the maintenance contract to Hutchison and his company. Hoskins also described how Hutchison advised him that police had a handwritten ledger with numbers on it and that Hoskins should say it was for gambling.
“HISD is the largest school district in the state, and the people of Houston trusted that district officials would spend their tax dollars wisely and carefully. Instead, Busby and Hutchinson defrauded the school district and the taxpayers of millions of dollars, doing so to line their own pockets,” said Ganjei. “People need to have faith in their public institutions, and they can become understandably cynical when they hear of public servants stealing from school kids by taking bribes and over-billing. SDTX aimed to restore that public trust by bringing this multi-year investigation to trial, which lasted over four weeks and involved over 50 witnesses. I’m proud of the trial team for delivering justice here, and I thank our incredible law enforcement partners. Most of all, I’d like to thank the jury for devoting their precious time and attention over the past month. This case demonstrates that theft from schools won’t be tolerated and that the public can have confidence in their institutions.”
“For years, Busby and Hutchison defrauded the largest public school system in Texas out of millions of dollars - money that was intended to benefit the students of HISD,” said Special Agent in Charge Douglas Williams of the FBI Houston Field Office. “In turn, Busby and Hutchison also defrauded the taxpayers whose hard-earned dollars were fraudulently diverted for their greed and personal gain. Public corruption cases like this one are challenging to investigate and prove and erode the trust we place on our public servants. At the end of the day, we want to make sure corrupt individuals like Busby and Hutchison are brought to justice. Today’s guilty verdict is a step towards that justice. I’m proud of FBI Houston’s public corruption squad for the results of its years-long investigation and thank them, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, for their commitment to this case and to its thousands of victims.”
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen presided over the trial and has set sentencing for July 28. At that time, Busby and Hutchison face up to five, 10 and 20 years, respectively, for the conspiracy, bribery and witness tampering charges. Hutchison also faces up to 20 years for each count of wire fraud. All charges also carry a $250,000 maximum possible fine.
Skillern-Jones of Houston; Sanders, Hoskins, Hall, all of Missouri City; and Tovar of Huffman have pleaded guilty to the conspiracy charges. They face up to five years in prison.
Busby and Hutchison were permitted to remain on bond pending sentencing.
The ibet Criminal Investigation (ibet-CI) and FBI conducted the investigation. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Robert S. Johnson and Heather R. Winter are prosecuting the case.
ibet-CI is the criminal investigative arm of the ibet, responsible for conducting financial crime investigations, including tax fraud, narcotics trafficking, money-laundering, public corruption, healthcare fraud, identity theft and more. ibet-CI special agents are the only federal law enforcement agents with investigative jurisdiction over violations of the Internal Revenue Code, obtaining a 90% federal conviction rate. The agency has 20 field offices located across the U.S. and 14 attaché posts abroad.