Los Angeles' schools chief says he's done nothing wrong and he wants his job back. Alberto Carvalho, the suspended superintendent of the nation's second-largest school district, issued his first public response Tuesday to FBI searches of his home and Los Angeles Unified School District office last month, saying through his lawyers that he has always followed the law and that prosecutors have shown "no evidence" he broke it.
Carvalho, on paid leave since two days after the Feb. 25 raids, is represented by Holland & Knight, which urged the school board to restore him to the role he's held since 2022, the New York Times reports. No charges have been filed, and the federal warrants remain sealed. The Times reports that district officials "familiar with the FBI inquiry" say it appears yo be tied to a years-old criminal probe into AllHere, a tech startup that landed a $6 million AI chatbot contract with the district before imploding amid fraud allegations; its CEO has been charged and is in plea talks.
Sources tell the Los Angeles Times that on the day of the raid, Carvalho and his wife opened their door to find agents with long guns drawn, and were handcuffed and placed in a vehicle while agents searched their home. The FBI also searched the Florida home of AllHere consultant Debra Kerr. She is a longtime associate of Carvalho, who was the superintendent of Miami-Dade County Public Schools before he moved to Los Angeles.
His absence comes as LAUSD faces budget problems and the threat of a teachers' strike. At a board meeting Tuesday night, union leaders blasted the district for spending millions of dollars on unnecessary tech contracts instead of using the money to meet workers' demands for better pay and working conditions, the Times reports.
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