A little more than two weeks before former Evanston/Skokie School District 65 Superintendent Devon Horton’s federal trial was set to begin over a kickback scheme he is accused of leading during his time at District 65, Horton changed his original plea of not guilty during a court appearance Monday.
Horton, who was indicted last year on 17 counts of embezzlement, wire fraud and tax evasion over his involvement in what prosecutors describe as an effort to misappropriate District 65 funds and award himself over $81,000 in kickbacks from approving the work contracts of three of his friends’ companies, pleaded guilty to three of those counts in federal court in Chicago Oct. 5.
Judge Thomas M. Durkin accepted Horton’s guilty plea to Counts 1, 14 and 16, ordering a pre-sentence investigation to assist the court in reaching a decision as to Horton’s punishment.
U.S. prosecuting Attorney Emily Vermylen informed the court Monday that the maximum sentencing length for Count 1 is 20 years in prison, 10 years for Count 14 and five years for Count 16, all with a maximum fine of $250,000.
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By pleading guilty to the three felony counts, Vermylen said Horton would lower his prison sentence length to between 87 to 108 months, or about seven to nine years, depending on Durkin’s ruling.
That’s far less than the maximum prison sentence of 290 years, according to previous reports, that Horton faced for the original 17 counts of wire fraud, tax evasion and embezzlement.
Horton originally pleaded not guilty to all 17 of those federal charges at his arraignment hearing in October 2025. Prosecutors have since dropped one of the charges, according to district court records.
When asked to make a statement regarding his decision to admit guilt on three of the counts, Horton admitted to Durkin that he failed to disclose his financial interests to District 65’s Board of Education, he inappropriately used his District 65 procurement or “P-card” for personal expenses and did not disclose the proceeds he earned from the activities involving Ross, Ross and Lewis when he filed his income tax returns in 2022 and 2023.
“Dr. Horton pled guilty to certain charges today primarily because he received some funds back from some school district contractors he knew and that was wrong,” his attorney, Terence Campbell, told Pioneer Press in a statement.
“He has acknowledged his misconduct and accepted responsibility for his actions. Devon Horton is a good man who has devoted his professional life to bettering the education of tens of thousands of students, and I am confident he will be a positive force in his community once this case is behind him.”
Horton’s change of plea follows co-defendant Samuel Ross’ decision to cooperate with prosecutors and enter a plea agreement Sept. 29, federal court records reveal.
In exchange for entering a guilty plea on one count of the wire fraud charges, prosecutors agreed to drop the remaining charges against Ross following his sentencing, per federal court records.
According to the federal indictment, defendants Samuel Ross, and former Chicago Public Schools employees Antonio Ross and Alfonzo Lewis, were all friends of Horton’s who allegedly agreed to award him kickbacks in exchange for the approval of professional service contracts for the companies they owned, along with additional payments.
The indictment alleges the three friends lied about the awarded contracts and made “materially false and fraudulent representations to make it falsely appear that Horton had no personal or economic interest in and was not associated with” the three men.
Samuel Ross and Antonio Ross are not related.
As of Oct. 5, both Antonio Ross and Lewis have not changed their not guilty pleas entered October 2025 and will stand trial later this month on Oct. 21.
Horton resigned as District 65’s superintendent in 2023, shortly before taking on the same role of superintendent for DeKalb County School District in DeKalb County, Georgia.
He later resigned from that position following news of his October 2025 federal indictment.
Horton was indicted in Georgia in August on separate charges of aggravated assault and cruelty to children following a verbal dispute with his wife in January, according to DeKalb County court records. A trial date for those charges has not yet been set.
Federal Judge Durkin ordered a Jan. 5, 2027 sentencing date for Horton’s federal case in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.
Additional details of his guilty plea and plea agreement were not publicly disclosed by Monday afternoon.