Oregon charter school founders accused in $20 million racketeering lawsuit
By on January 04, 2013 at 7:21 PM, updated January 04, 2013 at 10:16 PM
Tim King and Norm Donohoe, who ran a chain of taxpayer-funded charter schools across small-town Oregonfrom their headquarters in Clackamas, scammed the state out of $17 million and must repay that plus $2.7 million more, the state said in a court filing this week.
The legal claim, brought Thursday by the Oregon Department of Justice in Marion County Circuit Court, accuses the pair of racketeering, money laundering and other fraud from 2007 to 2010.
King and Donohoe, who were the director and president, respectively, of a nonprofit they named EdChoices, submitted false, incomplete and misleading records about how many students were enrolled in the schools and how they were spending the state's money, state prosecutors say in the complaint.
"It's not true," Donohoe said when reached after 5 p.m. Friday. He said EdChoices' attorney would need to speak for him but was not available after hours. King could not