Former Laraway principal sentenced for convict-hiring scam
By Janet Lundquist jlundquist@stmedianetwork.com January 18, 2013 4:32PM
Marshall
Updated: February 21, 2013 6:45AM
A former principal at Laraway Elementary School has been sentenced to probation for forging documents that allowed a man convicted in a fatal beating to work at the school.
Tashona R. Marshall, 32, Chicago, pleaded guilty to charges of forgery and official misconduct in October.
On Friday, she was sentenced to 30 months of probation and 180 days in jail, stayed pending successful completion of her probation, ordered to pay $15,000 in fines and costs.
In January 2012, Marshall resigned from the district after serving one semester as principal of the Joliet Township school.
At school board meetings in November and December 2011, Lashone White was introduced as a new employee for the district. Six years earlier, White was sentenced to seven years in prison for delivering the final head blow in a fatal beating outside a Coram, N.Y., strip club on April 24, 2005.
State police said Marshall and White already were acquainted when he applied for a job with the district.
She knew his history would show he is on parole, so instead of sending his fingerprints to the Bureau of Identification for a background check, she used her own fingerprints and presented them to the school as his, police said.
Soon after White was hired, the superintendent reportedly did a background check of his own and discovered White’s parole status on a New York website. When he contacted state police to learn how that hadn’t been reported, the investigation led to Marshall.
