Former school lunch lady pleads guilty to paying kids $1 to beat up student

Brooke Wilson-Johnson

GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- The former Campus Elementary lunchroom aide who paid $1 to have a fourth-grader beaten up by classmates entered a guilty plea to a misdemeanor offense on Friday, Feb. 14, court records show.

Brooke Wilson-Johnson, 19, pleaded guilty to aiding & abetting delinquent acts at a settlement conference with Grand Rapids District Judge Donald Passenger. She is scheduled to be sentenced Monday, March 17.

A second charge of aiding and abetting was dismissed for the Oct. 7, 2013 incident in which she offered $1 to three students to beat up a 9-year-old child in retaliation for him disobeying her instructions in the cafeteria and calling her a "pregnant b----."

On Jan. 9, she was offered the deal to plead guilty to one count and drop the other, according to court records.

Wilson-Johnson had denied the allegations when interviewed by police. The victim said he was pushed, bumped, thrown out of a seat, and had his food taken, according to Grand Rapids Schools public safety office records.

The students involved - two 9-year-old boys and a girl, age 10 - said they were each paid $1, according to police reports. However, a resource teacher, Renee Lance, only saw Wilson-Johnson give one student $1 in the cafeteria.

Wilson-Johnson, who began working at Campus in 2013 as a contracted employee through West Michigan Janitorial Service, was fired in October after the incident.

Charles Boekeloo, Wilson-Johnson's court appointed attorney, could not be reached for comment.

Monica Scott is the Grand Rapids K-12 education writer. Email her at mscott2@mlive.com and follow her on Twitter @MScottGR or Facebook

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