Former Houston ISD COO and Contractor Found Guilty in Multi-Million Dollar Bribery and Fraud Scheme

A federal jury in Houston has convicted the former chief operating officer of the Houston Independent School District (HISD), Brian Busby, and an HISD contractor, Anthony Hutchison, on multiple felony charges following a four-week trial, announced U.S. Attorney Nicholas J. Ganjei for the Southern District of Texas (SDTX).

After deliberating for only six hours, the jury found both Busby and Hutchison guilty of conspiracy, bribery, filing false tax returns, and witness tampering. Hutchison was also convicted of seven counts of wire fraud.

The trial featured testimony from over 50 witnesses regarding 33 charged counts involving bribery, false invoicing schemes, witness tampering, and tax violations. Five former HISD officials – Rhonda Skillern-Jones (former HISD Board of Education president), Derrick Sanders (officer of construction services), Alfred Hoskins (general manager of facilities, maintenance and operations), Gerron Hall (area manager for maintenance – south), and Luis Tovar (area manager for maintenance – north) – testified that they received bribe payments.

Their testimony detailed the pressure Busby exerted to steer more and larger HISD projects to Hutchison’s companies, particularly after Hurricane Harvey. They recounted receiving tens of thousands of dollars in bribes throughout 2017 and 2018 and beyond. Skillern-Jones testified about Busby instructing her to use Hutchison’s company for school projects funded by the 2012 bond, with an agreement to profit from the contracts. She described receiving $12,000 in cash from Busby, originating from Hutchison, as a bribe for allocating bond funds to Hutchison’s projects. Sanders recounted lavish trips to Las Vegas with Busby and Hutchison where he received bribes and witnessed their extravagant spending. Hoskins testified that his maintenance team often found Hutchison’s company, Just Construction, more expensive but were pressured by Busby to award them more work, bypassing standard vendor selection processes.

The jury also saw a handwritten ledger seized from Hutchison’s residence detailing HISD projects awarded to Just Construction, including entries for bribe payments and their locations. Evidence further revealed Hutchison’s extensive invoicing fraud through his company, Southwest Wholesale, the exclusive mowing and landscape contractor for HISD since 2015. Testimony showed Hutchison consistently overbilled HISD for years, inflating costs for mowing services at approximately 150 schools and marking up supply costs by over 200%, resulting in losses exceeding $6 million for the district.

Financial records showed Busby made excessive cash deposits totaling nearly $3 million across over 18 bank accounts between 2015 and 2019, far exceeding his legitimate income and undeclared on his tax returns. Hutchison also filed false tax returns in 2017 and 2018, improperly deducting business expenses by writing company checks to vendors who cashed them and provided the funds back to Hutchison for bribes and gambling debts, falsely claiming the checks were for work on HISD properties.

Hoskins also testified about Busby and Hutchison’s attempts to obstruct the investigation, including Busby instructing Hoskins to falsely claim Busby had no involvement in awarding the maintenance contract to Hutchison, and Hutchison advising Hoskins to attribute the numbers in the seized ledger to gambling.

U.S. Attorney Ganjei emphasized the breach of public trust, stating, “HISD is the largest school district in the state, and the people of Houston trusted that district officials would spend their tax dollars wisely and carefully. Instead, Busby and Hutchinson defrauded the school district and the taxpayers of millions of dollars, doing so to line their own pockets. People need to have faith in their public institutions, and they can become understandably cynical when they hear of public servants stealing from school kids by taking bribes and over-billing. SDTX aimed to restore that public trust by bringing this multi-year investigation to trial… I’m proud of the trial team for delivering justice here, and I thank our incredible law enforcement partners. Most of all, I’d like to thank the jury for devoting their precious time and attention over the past month.”

Special Agent in Charge Douglas Williams of the FBI Houston Field Office added, “For years, Busby and Hutchison defrauded the largest public school system in Texas out of millions of dollars – money that was intended to benefit the students of HISD… Today’s guilty verdict is a step towards that justice. I’m proud of FBI Houston’s public corruption squad for the results of its years-long investigation and thank them, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office, for their commitment to this case and to its thousands of victims.”

U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, who presided over the trial, has scheduled sentencing for July 28. Busby and Hutchison face potential sentences of up to five, 10, and 20 years for the conspiracy, bribery, and witness tampering charges, respectively. Hutchison also faces up to 20 years for each count of wire fraud. All charges carry a maximum possible fine of $250,000. The five former HISD officials who pleaded guilty to conspiracy face up to five years in prison. Busby and Hutchison remain on bond pending sentencing. The FBI and IRS – Criminal Investigation conducted the investigation, and Assistant U.S. Attorneys Robert S. Johnson and Heather R. Winter are prosecuting the case.