We all know that school lunches can sometimes get a bad rap, but what happened in a New York City public school takes the cake – or should we say, the chicken tenders?
Picture this: chicken drumsticks oozing a thick-red liquid and tender pieces with bits of metal. Not exactly the kind of lunch you’d expect to find in your cafeteria tray, right?
A recent trial in Brooklyn shed light on this stomach-churning incident. According to the New York Post, the trial involves Eric Goldstein, a former Department of Education official, who’s accused of accepting bribes from Texas-based meat supplier Somma Foods in exchange for allowing this questionable food to be served to school kids back in 2016.
Photos displayed during the trial showed tainted chicken tenders and drumsticks that were actually served to students. Jurors couldn’t help but wince and look away.
Debra Ascher, a former supply chain manager for school foods, testified that despite numerous red flags, these chicken tenders remained on the menu. The red flags included bones and plastics found in the chicken, and even a school food service manager needing the Heimlich maneuver after choking on a bone.
Reports of blood, “wire-like metal,” half-inch pieces of metal, and blue plastic in the chicken tenders between September 2016 and March 2017 raised further alarms.
Despite all this, the crispy tenders somehow made their way back to school menus by January 2017. Ascher, who raised concerns, found herself sidelined.
Now, the defense is trying to downplay the number of incidents, asking whether one in a million is poor performance. Ascher’s response? “One in one million is not poor performance.”
Goldstein and Somma owners Brian Twomey, Michael Turley, and Blaine Iler are all on trial, facing charges of conspiracy to commit extortion and bribery. Goldstein has an additional charge of extortion. If convicted, they could be looking at up to 20 years in prison.
It’s a story that leaves us with one question: How did tainted chicken ever make it onto those trays in the first place?
