Not so tender chicken

I like nothing more than a good old scandal. I was going to write that I savor these stories, but this one is decidedly unsavory.

Eric Goldstein used to work for the NYC Department of Education's Office of School Support Services, where he oversaw the Office of Food and Nutrition Services. That's a mouthful, but it translates into overseeing the breakfasts and lunches that was served to the school kiddos in all those PS's. 

This put him in the position to be unduly influenced by purveyors eager to fill all those mouthfuls. Unfortunately, Goldstein proved susceptible to undue influence. 

A few weeks ago: 

...a jury in Brooklyn convicted Mr. Goldstein of conspiracy, extortion, wire fraud and taking bribes, agreeing with prosecutors who said that he had abused his official position. After the verdict was delivered, Mr. Goldstein, sitting in the well of the courtroom next to his lawyers, rested his head in his hands and stared down at the defense table. (Source: NY Times)

Here's what happened. 

Somma, a Texas-based food outfit had a contract to supply chicken tenders to the NYC public school system. 

Now anyone who's known a child for more than, say, 12 minutes or so, will recognize immediately that chicken tenders are one of the major food groups for children, perhaps sitting at the top of the food pyramid (if the top of the food pyramid is the "it" spot). Unfortunately, the Somma tenders were

anything but. Plastic and metal bits had been found in the "meat." And bits of bone. (One school employee choked on a bony bit.) 

Yummers.

Understandably, the Department of Education was going to chuck these upchuckable lunchables. 

So the heads of Somma asked Goldstein to step in.

Somma was already in cahoots with Goldstein, having already partnered with him on a company called Range Meats. Goldstein owned 20% of Range Meats, which - surprise, surprise - was awarded a contract to provide burgers to the NYC schools. Needless to say, the NYC Department of Education wasn't aware of Mr. Goldstein's side hustle.

When the burgers were first test driven, Goldstein hoovered down the sample and asked for seconds, bringing in other evaluators to try them out. Nothing like having a steak stake in the proceeds to whet your appetite. 

To get the nasty chicken tenders back on the menu, the Somma execs dangled tends of thousands of dollars in front of Goldstein. It would take a tough man to resist such tender temptation, and Goldstein apparently doesn't have that sort of fibre. 

With Goldstein's intercession, Somma got back in the school system's food graces. For a while anyway. The complaints of tainted tenders kept coming in, and the decision was made to dump Somma. Kind of the same thing that no doubt happened to all those plastic trays with the undigestible chicken tenders on them. 

Goldstein is appealing his conviction, and claims that, although the evidence looks kinda-sorta bad, it's all a misunderstanding, and that his behavior was on the up and up.

We'll see how the appeal goes, but I'm guessing Goldstein will end up doing time.

I can't help but think about how ghastly prison food is supposed to be, and chicken tenders, cheap as they are, are staples of the prison diet. 

Be on the lookout, Mr. Goldstein, for bits of metal, plastic, and bone. (No wonder he was resting his head in his hands.)