$4.4 Million Seized From Houston Charter School Fraudsters
Style Magazine Newswire | 4/19/2019, 8:27 a.m.
The husband and wife founders of a Houston charter school amassed a fortune preying on their students’ parents. The duo pocketed fees they charged students to go on field trips and to wear street clothes on Fridays instead of school uniforms. Federal prosecutors announced Tuesday they had recovered over $4.4 million in restitution payments from the couple, who are now behind bars, and $604,000 of that will be distributed to more than 4,000 parents. Marian Annette Cluff, 70, and Alsie Cluff Jr., 69, founded the Varnett school in 1984, because they wanted to give their son a quality education. With the Texas State Board of Education’s permission, they turned the private school into a taxpayer-funded charter school in 1998. The Varnett Public School expanded to four campuses and had an enrollment of more than 1,000, predominantly comprised of economically disadvantaged black and Latino students. Marian was at the helm as superintendent, and Alsie acted as operations manager.
