Trial opens Tuesday: Did Lee County charter school leader steal some $1 million?

A federal trial in which the leader of a Lee County charter school is charged with two counts of theft of federal funds is set to open Tuesday morning in U.S. District Court in Columbia.

Benita Dinkins-Robinson, 40, is charged with embezzling the money from the U.S. Department of Education and various U.S. Department of Agriculture food and nutrition programs, money that should have gone for the students at her charter school, according to court documents and statements in open court about her case.

The amount she is accused of stealing is some $1 million, federal prosecutors have indicated in pretrial hearings. Jury selection in her case will take place Monday.

Dinkins-Robinson, who was indicted in May, has pleaded not guilty to the thefts, which allegedly took place between 2007 and 2013 at Mary L. Dinkins Higher Learning Academy in Bishopville, according to an indictment in the case.

The indictment came some two years after the S.C. Public Charter School District board voted to stop all funding to the Dinkins school. At the time, the board asked SLED to investigate various financial and academic irregularities, according to news reports.

Although in 2012 the school moved to a Sumter church, it was finally shut down in March 2013. Some 140 children were enrolled at the time.

The Dinkins school was a member of the S.C. Public Charter School District – a growing group of 31 public schools with 17,000 students and 500 teachers across South Carolina in more than a dozen counties. The Legislature created the statewide charter school district in 2007 as a way to empower parents and others to set up public schools with different missions.

In the Columbia area, for example, the East Point Academy in West Columbia, whose core mission is teaching Mandarin Chinese, was founded primarily by Chinese academics and Chinese businesspeople who wanted to give their children a high-quality academic environment. The school now has 449 students and a waiting list. Other charter schools might have environmental, science, Montessori or leadership orientations.

Wayne Brazell, the state public charter school district superintendent, said most of the district’s charter schools are doing well.

The closing of the Dinkins school in Bishopville, Brazell said, proves there is accountability in charter schools.

Brazell has been called as a potential witness by both sides in the upcoming trial.

U.S. Judge Terry Wooten is presiding.

Efforts to reach Dinkins-Robinson’s attorneys of record, Eleazor Carter and John Watson, were unsuccessful. Assistant U.S. Attorney Winston Holliday declined comment.

If Dinkins-Robinson is found guilty, the government will seek to seize some $750,000 of her assets, according to legal papers.

Her maximum sentence would be 10 years in prison for each count. But first-time offenders normally get far less than the maximum.

This story was originally published February 22, 2015 at 7:33 PM with the headline "Trial opens Tuesday: Did Lee County charter school leader steal some $1 million?."