Former Chicagoland nonprofit executive pleads guilty in $1.8M fraud scheme

CHICAGO — A former executive of a Chicagoland non-profit has pleaded guilty to her role in an alleged fraud scheme that resulted in $1.8 million in losses for the Illinois Department of Education.

On Thursday last week, 55-year-old Barbara Harris, a Matteson resident, pleaded guilty to a wire fraud charge in connection with the alleged scheme, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Illinois announced Wednesday.

According to prosecutors, in a plea agreement, Harris stated that while serving as the Executive Director of the Center for Community Academic Success Partnerships (CCASP) between 2012 and 2017, she allegedly misappropriated nearly $2 million that was intended to support the charity’s work with underprivileged youth.

At the time of the scheme, the CCASP was receiving government grants and other funds to provide after-school programs to schools in the Chicago area.

In her plea agreement, Harris admitted that she had allegedly schemed with another CCASP executive, 64-year-old Tony Bell, to submit grant applications that inflated the organization’s projected annual expenses and falsely claimed that five subcontractors would provide services to the CCASP when in reality she knew the subcontractors provided no actual services to the organization.

Prosecutors said the scheme resulted in approximately $1.8 million in actual loss to the Illinois Department of Education.

Bell, the second CCASP executive accused in the scheme pleaded not guilty to charges of conspiracy, money laundering and wire fraud and is currently awaiting trial.

In addition to the subcontractor scheme, in her pea agreement, Harris also admitted that she participated in a separate fraud scheme that bilked the federally funded AmeriCorps VISTA program, which awarded grants to non-profit organizations working to bring communities out of poverty, between 2021 and 2023.

Prosecutors said during that scheme, Harris who was serving as Co-Executive Director of the non-profit South Suburban Community Services, allegedly submitted grant applications that falsely represented that VISTA members would work for SSCS developing programs that aimed to bring economic opportunities to the city’s south suburbs.

In reality, prosecutors said Harris knew that the VISTA members would actually be used at SSCS to support already-funded job training and after-school violence prevention programs and fraudulently obtained approval for eleven members to work at SSCS. None of the members performed services in accordance with their VISTA assignment descriptions, which caused a $98,699 loss to the VISTA program.

Harris is set to appear in court for sentencing on July 11, 2025, and could face up to 20 years in federal prison.

Prosecutors did not provide booking photos for Harris or Bell.