Prosecution seeks 3-year sentence for former Baltimore educator Ian Roberts

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Ian Roberts portrayed himself as an educator who could improve public schools.

His last stops in his career of more than 15 years were the Millcreek Township School District in Pennsylvania, where he served as superintendent from August 2020 to June 2023, and the Des Moines Public Schools in Iowa, where he served as superintendent from July 2023 to September 2025. Earlier, he had worked as a teacher, special education coordinator and principal for Baltimore City Public Schools, and he was a decorated track and field athlete for Coppin State University.

Roberts broke the law to get jobs, warranting a federal prison sentence of three years and one month, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Des Moines.

The office is asking that the 55-year-old Roberts get 37 months of incarceration when he is sentenced in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Iowa on May 29 for his guilty plea to immigration and firearms charges.

“For more than 15 years as an education professional, Defendant cultivated a public image grounded in integrity, leadership and authenticity,” the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a sentencing memo filed May 22.

“Yet behind that public image, Defendant engaged in conduct that undermined those values. For more than 15 years, Defendant deliberately obtained employment without work authorization at school after school, within state after state.

“All the while, Defendant knew he was not a U.S. citizen.”

Sentencing follows guilty plea to two counts

Roberts, a native of Guyana, in South America, pleaded guilty on Jan. 21 to two felony counts — that he falsely claimed he was a United States citizen when he was hired in Des Moines, and that he illegally possessed four firearms as an “illegal alien.”

The immigration charge applies only to Roberts’ hiring at the 30,000-student Des Moines Public Schools, the largest public school system in Iowa. But as Roberts worked in education in the United States for more than 15 years, including in Millcreek, he had proper immigration authorization “for all but 18 months,” according to the sentencing memo.

The 18-month authorization to work in the United States under temporary employment status expired in December 2020. That was five months into Roberts’ job leading the 6,400-student Millcreek School District, the second-largest school district in Erie County.

The weapons count applies to the four guns authorities found in Roberts’ car and house when they arrested him on immigration charges in Des Moines on Sept. 26. He was indicted on Oct. 16.

U.S. attorney seeks sentence at top of range

Roberts has been held in prison since his arrest. He faces a maximum sentence of five years on the falsification count and 15 years on the gun count. The advisory federal sentencing guidelines call for a prison term of 30 months to 37 months. The guidelines consider such factors as a defendant’s guilty plea and prior record.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office wants U.S. District Judge Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger to sentence Roberts to “a top-of-guideline sentence of 37 months” but no less than the 30 months on the low end of the guidelines, according to the sentencing memo. Assistant U.S. Attorney MacKenzie Tubbs filed the memo on behalf of David Waterman, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Iowa.

Roberts will be deported after he serves any sentence. That certainty should not lead to a sentence below the guidelines range, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.

“Imposing a lesser sentence based on post-sentence immigration consequences fails to capture the sentencing aim of deterring future criminal conduct,” according to the sentencing memo.

Roberts’ lawyers filed a sealed sentencing memo on May 22. The lawyers early on May 27 got permission from a federal magistrate judge to unseal the memo, which had yet to be unsealed by the late morning of May 27.

The defense lawyers are expected to make their sentencing request at the hearing on May 29. Roberts will also be allowed to speak at the hearing.

Roberts ‘placed self-interest above the law’

After Roberts was charged in Iowa, the Millcreek School District investigated and said he falsely stated that he was a U.S. citizen when the district hired him as superintendent in June 2020. The Millcreek School Board asked the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Erie to consider filing charges against Roberts and the board considered filing lawsuits.

Roberts was never charged in Erie. The Millcreek School Board in December approved an agreement to get $25,000 from the search firm Ray and Associates, which the district used when the board hired Roberts.

The criminal case in Iowa focuses on Roberts’ tenure in Des Moines, but the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Des Moines said he violated the public’s trust throughout his career. The sentencing memo lists the Millcreek job as one of eight Roberts held in education.

Roberts, according to the memo, “will highlight the teachers, students and education professionals his work shaped and improved. Nevertheless, Defendant placed his self-interest above the law and the duty he owed the public he served.”

Reporting by Ed Palattella, Erie Times-News / USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect