The Full Timeline of DMPS Superintendent in America

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Couple of Fridays ago, while you were sitting here, right
before my show, I saw this happen. I knew it
was going to be a pretty big deal. What I
didn't expect was to see this many different twists and turns.
Things quieted down a bit over the weekend on this front,
but basically as we were finishing up our show, the

(00:20):
Department of Holy Limet Security released an entire article on
their website about the history of what they're calling criminal
illegal alien Ian Andre Roberts, who was serving as the
Des Moines, Iowa school superintendent at the time of his
arrest on September twenty sixth. So we mentioned all the
things that were weird about the case in and of itself.

(00:43):
He was in a school issued vehicle. He was in
a trailer park area driving the car, which is weird
in and of itself. He was approached by ice, was
found with a loaded handgun, a diixplayed knife, and three
thousand dollars cash, which a lot of people are like,
what is going on there. We haven't really gotten to
the bottom of exactly what he was doing there, but

(01:04):
obviously he's on federal weapon charges because he's an illegal
alien and he shouldn't have any weapons. He's got four
of them. One was with him, the other three were
at his residence. There are a lot of questions about
his you know, his resume. There were things done there
that were inaccurate. Things that he lied about his wife,
Letitia Roberts. We have yet to really figure out if

(01:27):
she actually is real or not. She bought the handgun
that was in the car that he was carrying in Arkansas,
but we have no evidence that she lives with him
or where she is, or if maybe there was some
sort of fakery to that. You can ask all those
questions now, because there's no way to know well anyway.

(01:49):
The Department of hall Land Security said, we got the
entire criminal record, and we have his entire immigration history.
This is the stuff we were missing. This is the
stuff we were looking for. His criminal record nineteen ninety
six charges for criminal possession of narcotics with intent to sell,
criminal possession of narcotics, criminal possession of a forgery instrument,

(02:09):
and possession of a forgery instrument that was in New York.
This is nineteen ninety six. If you go back just
a couple of years before that, he entered the United
States at JFK International Airport on a B two non
immigrant visa. This is June first, nineteen ninety four. He
was classified at that time as a visit, a visitor
for pleasure. He departed the US on an unknown date,

(02:31):
but returned sometime obviously before he was rested in July
of ninety six for the charges with narcotics intent to sell.
This guy has a drug history. Now, this again is
a long time ago. Its thirty almost thirty years ago.
But when you are charged with that, that is going
to be something that's going to keep you, just keep

(02:52):
this in mind, from having the ability to get permanent
status in the United States if you're already an immigrant
on a visa. Now, again, we also know that he
was at Coppin State University. He was in athletics. He
was a track and field athlete eventually would represent Guyana
in the Olympic Games. But he was a guy who

(03:14):
you know, was allegedly in college and based on the
age we know him to be now, he would have
been twenty years old when he first got here. Twenty
two ish years old. This is not a small kid.
This is not a sixteen year old. This is an adult.
It's an adult guy. He knows the rules and that

(03:35):
a nice only four entry is like the first time
that we know of him coming into the United States
on a visa. So all this born in the United
States stuff that was circulating when we first were learning
about him, that he was born to Guyanese immigrants in
New York, that doesn't appear to be true at all,
even though we do have information that his father at

(03:55):
least was in the United States in the eighties. Now
moving on November in nineteen ninety eight, there was a
charge for a third degree unauthorized use of a vehicle
in Queen's but that charge was dismissed a year later,
so he was charged for unauthorized use of a vehicle,
but they dismissed that charge by the middle of nineteen
ninety nine. In nineteen ninety nine, he entered the United

(04:16):
States through California San Francisco International Airport. He had an
F one student visa. The visa is set to expire
March the seventh, two thousand and four, but he departed
the US on an unknown date, so he had left
again at some point, but that F one student visa.
This is when he started going to Saint John's. This
was the visa that people were reporting about in the

(04:37):
media that he had so he could go to Saint John's.
And for whatever it's worth, he did go there, and
he did get issued a master's degree at Saint John's,
so that part of his resume. He did actually go
through school and get his degree. Now, he also re
entered a couple months later, so he had left and
got back in August of nineteen ninety nine for the

(05:02):
third time. He comes back, this time through JFKA International Airport,
still on that student visa, so he's going and coming
back back and forth. I'm assuming from Guyana multiple times.
He's got a visa that's been legally issued to him.
At this point, he is a student at Saint John's University,
but we don't know exactly where he's going and what
date he's leaving. We just know when he comes back.

(05:24):
On February ninth, two thousand, he filed for an application
for employment authorization and that was approved by US Citizenship
and Immigration Services or USCIS. That was on April fifth,
two thousand. It was it was going to expire a
year after that, so he did have a visa to
work in two thousand. We know he left the United

(05:45):
States September the fourth from New York, came back JFK
International Airport, still in that student visa. He then filed
for for the first time. He filed for a green
card application with USCIS. That was on May twenty first
of two thousand and one. So this is an opera
unity for him, basically saying I want to stay here,
I want to work here, I want to live here.

(06:05):
But after a year and a half, in January of
two thousand and three, USCIS rejected that. I'm assuming that
has something to do with his criminal history of the
possession of narcotics with intent to sell in the mid
nineteen nineties. He'd been pretty clean besides that to that point.
In twenty twelve, he had a conviction for reckless driving,
unsafe operation, and speeding in the state of Maryland. Is

(06:27):
while he was working in Maryland, and he was a
registered voter in Maryland, So keep that in mind too,
which is also a crime. I have no idea what
the rules are for voting in Maryland, but obviously not
good enough. But that was the first time he had
actually been convicted of anything since nineteen ninety six. But
reckless driving. That is not uncommon for a lot of

(06:48):
people in any variety of jobs to be in charge with.
Many people have speeding tickets, you know, but still it
goes on your permanent record. By twenty eighteen, he is
filing for a green card application again. This is in
May of twenty eighteen. The agency rejected that just a
couple weeks later. A week after he was rejected, he

(07:10):
applied for another green card application. It was rejected a
third time. Two weeks after that. Two weeks after that,
he applies for a green card again a fourth time,
So he just kept applying. The USCIS finally denied his
fourth green card application in January of twenty twenty, so

(07:30):
at it's set on the desk for a while. He
also filed for employment authorization documents. He did get that
in twenty eighteen, so they were allowing him to work
on basically a year to year basis through a visa
and through authorization documents for employment. They did not want
him to have permanent residence here. What I did want
to tell you is finish the story we were talking

(07:53):
about with Ian Roberts in his timeline, and we got
up to basic June in July of twenty eighteen, where
he had applied three different times within a two month
span for green card. He wanted to permanently be here
in the United States. This is a guy who at
the time when this was happening, was looking to try

(08:16):
to become a superintendent at a school district, and he
eventually became a superintendent at the Mill Creek Township School
District in Pennsylvania and eventually moved to Des Moines and
became their superintendent in twenty twenty three. So the way
that this goes, he's in. On February third of twenty twenty,

(08:41):
we mentioned he had charges for criminal possession of narcotics
with intent to sell back in nineteen ninety six, so
he got in trouble. That's certainly more than anything has
to do with why he was not given green card
or permanent status here, but the government kept giving him
year to year visas, essentially so he could continue to

(09:03):
work here in the United States. And he seemed to
be on pretty good behavior because from nineteen ninety six.
There was a charge for third degree an authori's use
of a vehicle in New York in ninety eight, but
that charge was dismissed. It wasn't until twenty twelve where
he fell back into a law enforcement situation. So I mean,
sixteen years had gone by between his charge for narcotics

(09:26):
with intent to sell when he would have been roughly
twenty two years old, and then fast forward, he's already
working in school districts. Now he allegedly a doctor, even
though we know he didn't have the doctor, and he
said but he had done a lot of schooling. He
had been working in school districts. In twenty twelve, he
got convicted for reckless driving, unsafe operation and speeding, which

(09:46):
again not to say that that's okay, but that's not
a super egregious criminal thing that I mean, there are
some really good people who are well accomplished, and people
would go to BAT four that have a rect driving
or a speeding charge on the record. But then you
go another eight years. He runs into police again. In

(10:07):
February third, twenty twenty, there were charges for second degree
criminal possession of a weapon, having a loaded firearm outside
his home or business, third degree criminal possession of a
weapon an ammunition feeding device, and fourth degree weapon charges
as well. Now documents they say, eventually I think they
dropped the second degree criminal possession of a weapon, and

(10:31):
for whatever it's worth, they were able to make some adjustment.
I don't know how that wasn't a bigger deal on
his rap sheet when the background checks were being made.
I can understand in theory, if he's a doctor, if
he's a person who had gone through all this schooling
and been kind of a reformed individual, that narcotics charge

(10:52):
from nineteen ninety six would not have been a problem
for a school district. I can see that he had
been in schools as prince or like a superintendent type person.
I can understand, Hey, that happened almost thirty years ago.
You are a completely different person now than you were then.
That doesn't count these weapons possessions. Like that's a little

(11:15):
weird to me. And then the January twenty of twenty
twenty two, that was when the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania convicted
him an unlawful possession of loaded firearm. That was the
one that he paid like one hundred dollars fine for
It doesn't look that bad on paper, but it still
is a weird thing to have situated in the middle
of his rap sheet. Throw in this one from twenty twenty,

(11:36):
which I didn't know about, and these criminal possessions of
weapon and the fact that now, as an illegal alien,
having a firearm at all is against the law and
he should not have had the ability to have those.
I don't know how that works with his verses. When
his visa expires, Does he have to just get rid
of all of his weapons? Can he legally buy weapons
with certain verses? That again is something that is uh,

(12:01):
We're going to need the detectives to get out there
and to dig into that sort of thing. Now, as
far as it relates to his immigration status. As this
is happening February of twenty twenty, right around the same
time he was being convicted on the first weapon charge,
he had updated his address to accurately reflect where he
was living. By October of twenty twenty, he was issued
to notice to appear before an immigration judge. This is

(12:23):
in October of twenty twenty. As far as we know,
we don't have any information that he actually did appear
before an immigration judge. In fact, in May twenty second,
twenty twenty four, this is the important date, if you will,
an immigration judge in Dallas, Texas ordered him to be
removed in absentia, which means he didn't show up. Now,

(12:45):
he was already hired, and he was already the superintendent
of the Des Moines Public School District at that time.
But if we look at the timeline here, at the
end of that first school year he was in Des Moines,
he was supposed to go be seen, and he would
have had to go down to Dallas to be seen
by the judge, and he would have had an opportunity

(13:07):
in theory, you would think to at least work on
his status and plead for, you know, whatever it takes
for him to stay working. He's making three hundred thousand
dollars a year tax payer money. He's making tax payer
money in Milk Creek Township in Pennsylvania, working for public
school districts in multiple states at different points. He's making

(13:30):
taxpayer dollars and again, for whatever it's worth. The people
of the Mooines who were in that school district, for
the most part, seemed to like the guy. I mean,
nobody had a bad thing to say about him the
first couple of years. That liked his energy and his enthusiasm.
They liked that, you know, he really seemed to care
about the kids. But everything about this is so like

(13:50):
all of this was just happening in a back room,
all this immigration stuff and the weapons charging things, and
nobody seemed to have any idea that it was happening.
How do we not know? How does Baker U Banks
or JG Consulting, who did the background check and they
did the candidate search, How did they not get any
of this stuff? How was this not readily available to

(14:12):
them when they dug in? And why didn't then de
wining public schools for whatever it's worth. And again, they're
paying people to do a lot of this work for them,
and they failed them. They did. But at the same time,
you just decided to take him for his word on
stuff on a bunch of stuff after you found out
they knew before they hired him that he didn't have
that doctorate for Morgan State that he had claimed, so

(14:33):
that in and of itself would have if I was
on that school board, I was like, that's an awfully
strange thing for a person who wants to be a
our superintendent to lie about on their resume, But they
just they skirted past it. They trusted on them pretty
much everything else that was on his resume, called it good.
He was ordered for removal in May of twenty twenty four.

(14:53):
By April twenty twenty four, there was a motion by
Roberts or maybe an attorney, to reopen his case. This
would have been a month after his alleged immigration lawyer
in Texas sent him that letter. He says that made
him confuse as to his immigration status, made it seem like, oh,

(15:15):
he had gotten it taken care of and he didn't
have anything to worry about. Yet a month later he
is attempting to reopen his case with an immigration judge,
and that's I would imagine, maybe the same one in
Dallas that said, no, no, we're not reopening your case.
It's over your ordered removal in the country. And I'm
sure he was motivated to reopen it now that ICE

(15:37):
was actually enforcing immigrants who didn't have status in this country.
He was trying to figure that out. It wasn't until
September twenty sixth, of course, two fridays ago, that he
was actually detained and he ran so like, you're telling
me this guy didn't know his immigration status, even though
they found the immigration papers that were ordering his removal

(15:57):
in his other vehicle. Not the school issued was caught in,
but as soon as Ice said that they were Ice,
he essentially ran away, tried to hide he had the
weapons in the car. You can tell me all you
want about trying to defend this guy. This guy absolutely
knew what he was doing. He absolutely knew he had
broken the law. How can you trust a school district
of thirty five thousand plus kids and staff with a

(16:19):
guy like this. I don't care how nice he is.
I don't care how energetic he is. I don't care
that he resonated with the kids at some point. Like,
just because I'm a really nice, super awesome dude does
not mean like if I was not to say that
I am, But if I was a super nice dude
and I cared a lot about like kids and stuff,
that doesn't mean like I should just be able to

(16:39):
run a school district that just isn't and then make
three hundred thousand dollars a year of tax paramney to
do that. I am totally unqualified to do that. There's
not a whole lot different between this guy and Dewey
Finn Jack Black's character in School of Rock, who literally
impersonated a teacher and used a bunch of twelve year

(17:00):
olds to make a rock band so he could win
Battle of the Bands. But by the end of the movie,
everybody's like, oh, what a nice guy. He's such a
great guy. He's so great with the kids. He's really
unlocked like their talents and their interests in music. What
a cool, awesome guy he is. He impersonated a teacher
for weeks. He taught them nothing. He kidnapped them on

(17:23):
multiple occasions. But we're okay with it because he's a
nice guy. That's what's happening here. Hopefully you got that reference.