CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WCHS) — A Kentucky man who pled guilty in February to playing a role in a scheme to defraud a local school district has been sentenced, prosecutors said.

Jesse Marks, 65, of Rush, Ky., was sentenced to five years of federal probation, including 18 months of house arrest, according to a press release from the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of West Virginia.

Additionally, Marks has been ordered to pay nearly $3.5 million in restitution, according to prosecutors.

Marks' sentencing comes just days after his co-conspirator Michael David Barker, 48, was sentenced to nearly three years in prison and three years of supervised release, as well owing over $3.4 million in restitution himself.

The two men had conspired from 2020 to 2023 to overbill and defraud Boone County Schools for cleaning supplies provided by Marks, who was the owner of Rush Enterprises at the time. Barker, who was the maintenance director of Boone County Schools when the scheme occurred, submitted fraudulent invoices to the county school system on behalf of Rush Enterprises that inflated the number of products being delivered.

According to Marks via court records, an estimated 80% of money spent by Boone County Schools went toward product that was never delivered.

Marks and Barker split the funds received from the overbilling relatively equally. Marks said he deposited the mailed checks from Boone County Schools into Rush Enterprises' business bank account before writing himself checks on that account, which he cashed at various banks. He also personally delivered cash to Barker in manila envelopes.

Barker pleaded guilty to his involvement in the scheme in April.

“Justice prevailed due to the tremendous teamwork of our federal and state law enforcement agencies,” United States Attorney Moore Capito said in the release. “These two defendants enriched themselves by stealing millions of dollars from a public school system in our southern coalfields during a national emergency.

"They stole hope from the children of Boone County and did so at the expense of taxpayers throughout West Virginia and our country. This is no longer a negotiable vice in West Virginia – it is a crime we will prosecute without mercy.”