Illinois employee stole $1.6M meant for child care and gambled it away: Federal complaint

CHICAGO – A former employee of the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services has been charged in federal court with stealing more than $1 million meant for child care and gambling it on slot machines, according to a federal complaint unsealed last week.

Shauntele Pridgeon, 54, was employed as a Social Service Community Planner with the DCFS from 2015 to August of last year. She was tasked with reviewing and approving daycare providers for children under DCFS’ supervision, according to the complaint.

Over the course of multiple years, Pridgeon accepted bribes from numerous people in exchange for her favorable consideration of their applications to be childcare providers to children in foster care, the complaint alleges.

Between 2016 and 2022, a bank account belonging to Pridgeon and her husband received approximately $1.6 million in undisclosed payments from at least 12 different people who were registered with DCFS as childcare providers. The registered providers were receiving payments from DCFS at the time, and an FBI agent discovered many of the providers regularly paid out approximately half to Pridgeon, the complaint details.

The address of one of the providers Pridgeon claimed was providing child care was in fact a beauty salon, the complaint states.

At the same time, Pridgeon gambled “extensively” at a Chicago-area casino, primarily playing slot machines, and lost about $2.2 million from 2015 to 2022, the complaint says. She often paid her gambling-related expenses using the money from the childcare providers, the complaint said.

The Illinois Office of the Inspector General and Illinois State Police began investigating Pridgeon in August, at the request of her direct supervisor. The FBI joined the investigation in November.