Chiefs player Chris Jones offers to pay $1.5 million in stolen chicken wings to free ex-school employee

HARVEY, Ill. (Gray News) – A former Illinois school district employee has been sentenced to nine years in prison for stealing $1.5 million worth of chicken wings from the district’s food service.

Now Kansas City Chiefs defensive tackle Chris Jones is offering to pay for the stolen wings if it means freeing 68-year-old Vera Liddell.

According to a report from WGN, Liddell was arrested in January 2023 and pleaded guilty last week. She was sentenced to nine years in prison.

Liddell was the director of food services for Harvey School District 152 near Chicago for more than a decade, WGN reported.

Chicago defense attorney Patrick O’Byrne told PEOPLE that Liddell is a “thankful” woman with no criminal record who had a gambling problem.

O’Byrne said Liddell resold the chicken wings and gambled the proceeds.

After Liddell’s story went viral, the Chiefs player posted on X, writing: “I’ll pay for the wings he stole to free her.”

According to PEOPLE, Jones is serious. O’Byrne said he had been in contact with Jones to resolve the situation.

Liddell’s attorneys told PEOPLE that unfortunately, Jones’ offer is complicated by the fact that Liddell has already been convicted and placed in state custody as a convicted felon.

They have 30 days after her conviction to file a motion to seek restitution.

“The clock is ticking and Chris Jones needs to be there with a checkbook,” Liddell’s other attorney, Gregory LaPapa, told PEOPLE.

The offenses took place during the COVID pandemic, when students were not allowed to be physically present at school. During this time, the district continued to provide meals to students that their parents could pick up.

Court records show Liddell ordered more than 11,000 cases of chicken wings from the school district’s food supplier and picked up the order in a district delivery van.

The food was never brought to the school or given to students, records show.

District funds were used to pay for the chicken wings, according to prosecutors.

A report from WLS said Liddell’s chicken wing orders were placed over a 19-month period from July 2020 to February 2022.

According to WGN, the scheme was discovered by the district’s business manager in January 2023 during a routine mid-year audit. The manager discovered that the district had exceeded its annual food service budget by $300,000, despite only being halfway through the school year.

The business manager also found it highly suspicious that the chicken wings were ordered in the first place because they are never served to students because they contain bones, prosecutors said.

Liddell is being held at the Cook County Jail.

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