A former Chicago Public Schools STEM teacher who admitted taking part in a multimillion-dollar Southwest Airlines voucher scam received a sentence of a year and a day in federal prison on Monday, bringing an official end to a sprawling scheme that prosecutors say drained the airline of nearly $2 million.
Ned Brooks, who taught at Fiske Elementary in West Woodlawn and spent more than two decades working in CPS classrooms, received his sentence after pleading guilty last year to one count of wire fraud.
In court filings, Brooks admitted buying and reselling thousands of “Southwest Luv Vouchers” that his co-defendant, airline customer service agent Dajuan Martin, generated by exploiting his access to Southwest’s customer service compensation system.
Martin has already been sentenced to two years in federal prison and was ordered to make $1,875,900 in restitution.
Prosecutors say Martin obtained thousands of fraudulent vouchers by entering codes into Southwest’s system to make it appear customers were receiving vouchers for unpleasant travel experiences. Instead, he used real and fictitious names to generate vouchers, then sold them to Brooks, who “knew he was not entitled to the SLVs,” according to the government’s sentencing memo. Brooks resold the vouchers for personal profit. In total, authorities say, Brooks caused Southwest to lose at least $1,786,000.
Court records describe an astonishingly fast-moving fraud that ballooned in a matter of weeks. In February 2022, Martin reaped about $4,000 from the scheme, nearly doubling his monthly income, according to the government’s filings. Within two months, by April 2022, he had embezzled more than $200,000. By May and June 2022, the total had surged past $2,000,000, a pace prosecutors called an exponential escalation.
The government said Martin embezzled more than $2,150,000 from February through June 2022 before Southwest audits uncovered the scheme. Brooks took part for several months, and prosecutors say he recruited at least two other participants into the operation.
Brooks pleaded guilty on November 6, 2024, under a written plea agreement. “Restitution is mandatory in this case,” prosecutors wrote, urging the court to order him to pay the full amount jointly with Martin.
In their filings, prosecutors argued that Brooks “engaged in blatantly fraudulent conduct for several months,” driven by greed despite earning a stable income as a longtime teacher. “This was not a one-time lapse in judgment,” they wrote. “Defendant’s actions were methodical and calculated.”
Brooks’ defense attorney, by contrast, emphasized the veteran teacher’s decades of community work. Court filings note that Brooks spent his career teaching math, science, and technology to underrepresented students, coaching youth sports, mentoring young teachers, and volunteering in programs aimed at helping minority students enter STEM fields.
U.S. District Judge John Tharp handled the case and sentencing.
