The former head of the New York City Office of School Support Services and three executives of a defunct food service company were convicted on bribery, extortion, wire fraud and conspiracy charges Wednesday.

The chicken products sold by the company and served to city children included tenders with bones, metal and plastic in them, and drumsticks that leaked a red liquid.

Eric Goldstein was the CEO of the NYC Department of Education Office of School Support Services from 2008 to 2018, a role that included oversight of the Office of Food and Nutrition Services, also called SchoolFood.

In early 2015, Blaine Iler, Michael Turley and Brian Twomey founded SOMMA Food Group to provide products for retail and food service, including selling to K-12 school systems nationwide. At around the same time, the three along with Goldstein founded Range Meats Supply.

SOMMA would buy beef from Range Meats and sell it to stores and city schools. Concurrently to their Range Meats deal with Goldstein, the three SOMMA executives promoted SOMMA products, including their Chickentopia items, to SchoolFood personnel who reported to Goldstein.

In the fall of 2016 an employee of the NYCDOE choked on a bone in a Chickentopia tender sold by SOMMA, necessitating the use of the Heimlich maneuver. The tenders were taken out of schools.

Goldstein, who initially had a 20% share in Range Meats, held out on getting the tenders back into city schools. While that was pending, schools served Chickentopia drumsticks that leaked an unidentified red liquid.

Students and staff continued to report finding bone, plastic and thin metal wire in the tenders, and all SOMMA products, including yogurt and Chickentopia fare, were removed from NYC schools in April 2017.

Goldstein was convicted of conspiracy, extortion wire fraud and taking bribes; Iler, Turley and Twomey were convicted of conspiracy, wire fraud and bribery, reported The New York Times. Each defendant faces up to 20 years in prison.

“The defendants’ criminal conduct is a textbook example of choosing greed over the needs of our schools and the well-being of our children. Our children depended on nutritious meals served in schools and instead got substandard food products containing pieces of plastic, metal and bones, which is unacceptable,” U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of New York Breon Peace said in a statement.

• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.