FBI asked for Beaufort Co. schools employee’s computer, internet history, subpoena shows
For the fifth time in three years, a Beaufort County School District employee has been subpoenaed by the FBI — but this time, the agency is asking for a computer and internet history, not construction and financial records.
The subpoena, obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette, appears unrelated to others the district has received regarding former superintendent Jeff Moss and the construction of May River High School and River Ridge Academy.
Prior to the latest subpoena, the FBI had looked at a district employee’s technology equipment. According to district emails, an FBI agent visited M.C. Riley Elementary School in December 2018 as part of a “preliminary investigation” of a third-grade teacher that included an inspection of his tech devices.
District spokesman Jim Foster declined Friday to comment on any possible connections between the two FBI interactions.
The July 2019 subpoena, addressed to district attorney Wendy Cartledge, commanded her to appear in front of a grand jury the next month at Charleston’s federal courthouse.
It also commanded her to bring the work computer of a former district employee with her, along with the internet history and content filter logs for that computer.
“The school district complied with the subpoena on July 22, 2019, and no further information has been requested by the U.S. Attorney’s Office,” district FOIA officer Jennifer Staton wrote last week.
“The computer was returned, and to the best of our knowledge, no criminal charges have been filed against the former employee.”
The district redacted the employee’s name from the subpoena, which asks for the employee’s internet history from Jan. 1, 2018 to March 19, 2019, the date of the employee’s resignation.
An FBI visit
On Dec. 14, 2018, an FBI agent showed up to M.C. Riley Elementary School and seized the technology devices for “a preliminary investigation of a third grade teacher,” emails between district officials and the school board show.
The teacher is not named in that email, which was sent from district HR director Alice Walton to then-superintendent Herb Berg, district spokesman Jim Foster and the school board.
“We secured all technology devices and followed our normal procedures for a situation like this,” Walton wrote Dec. 17. “The teacher reported to my office and I placed him on administrative leave until we get an all clear from the FBI.”
Foster said Friday that the teacher’s devices were returned to the district, and that the district was “not aware of any visits or meetings after December 2018.”
That teacher resigned March 15, 2019, still on administrative leave, Foster confirmed Friday. He had been hired to the district on Aug. 10, 2015.
The district’s other subpoenas
Since December 2017, the district and its employees — chief of operations Robert Oetting, chief financial officer Tonya Crosby and former district project manager Anthony Pernice — have received at least five subpoenas from the FBI.
At least one other former district employee, retired procurement coordinator Sandra Amsler, has been interviewed by the FBI.
In previous subpoenas, the FBI appeared to be looking into the procurement process used during the construction of May River High School and River Ridge Academy, as well as former superintendent Jeff Moss’ association with a North Carolina-based architect and a controversial organization that brings together education vendors and school superintendents.