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Federal authorities raided the home and office of Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Alberto Carvalho on Wednesday morning in what appears to be a probe related to a company that developed an AI chatbot for the nation’s second-largest school system.
Authorities have not provided any details about the investigation. But one source with knowledge of the matter said it involved AllHere, a failed AI company whose founder was charged with fraud in 2024.
Along with Carvalho’s San Pedro home and office at LAUSD headquarters in downtown Los Angeles, the FBI provided an address in Florida that was searched Wednesday morning. Public records show that property is linked to an individual who worked with AllHere.
Law enforcement sources, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, told The Times that the federal investigation specifically involves Carvalho, who has served as LAUSD superintendent since February 2022.
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Carvalho joined LAUSD in 2022 as a nationally acclaimed education leader from Miami-Dade, known for improving academics and defying Gov. Ron DeSantis on pandemic mandates.
FBI agents searched a residence in Southwest Ranches, a town in Broward County, Fla., in connection with the investigation, according to an FBI spokesman in Miami.
According to public record databases, Debra Kerr, a salesperson whose clients included AllHere, is listed as the owner of the Florida home. Neither the FBI nor confidential sources identified Kerr on Wednesday as a target of the investigation. Attempts to contact Kerr were unsuccessful.
Kerr, a successful consultant to companies seeking work with school districts, has long ties to Carvalho, going back to his time as superintendent in Miami. She worked as a consultant to AllHere and has claimed in court documents that the company owes her $630,000.
The 74, an education news site, previously reported that Kerr said AllHere never paid her a commission owed for work closing the AllHere deal in Los Angeles. The outlet also reported that Kerr’s son, Richard, is a former AllHere account executive who told the 74 he pitched the company to L.A. school leaders.
The FBI declined to share more information, citing the fact that the affidavits have been sealed by the court. Sources familiar with the probe said that the focus was Carvalho as opposed to LAUSD, and that it would fall under the broad category of financial issues.
Ciaran McEvoy, a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, confirmed Wednesday morning that law enforcement was “executing a judicially approved search warrant” at Carvalho’s home, as well as at the headquarters of LAUSD. He also confirmed a search in Florida but declined to comment further.
LAUSD officials said in a statement that they had been informed of the law enforcement activity and were cooperating with the investigation. They provided no additional details.
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Joanna Smith-Griffin allegedly lied to investors as chief executive of AllHere, creator of Los Angeles Unified School District’s AI tool “Ed,” since unplugged.
Joanna Smith-Griffin, the founder and former chief executive of AllHere, was arrested in 2024 and charged with securities fraud, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. By then, the envisioned LAUSD chatbot — known as “Ed” — had been withdrawn from service.
Ed was an artificial intelligence tool billed by Carvalho in August 2024 as revolutionary for students’ education and the interaction between LAUSD and the families it serves. The tool was never fully deployed.
“The indictment and the allegations represent, if true, a disturbing and disappointing house of cards that deceived and victimized many across the country,” Carvalho said at the time. “We will continue to assert and protect our rights.”
The indictment and collapse of AllHere was an embarrassment for Carvalho and the school system, but did not appear to represent a major financial exposure. The school system had spent about $3 million with the company for work completed as part of a contract originally worth up to $6 million over five years. By comparison, the district’s budget this year is $18.8 billion.
A former AllHere senior executive has accused the now-collapsed company of inadequate security measures. Even if that allegation is true, there has been no evidence of a related security breach affecting student or employee data.
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LAUSD sidelines “Ed,” an AI chatbot, after a splashy kick-off featuring a company that has now tanked. District also is dealing with another data breach.
AllHere also had a contract for somewhat different services with Miami-Dade County Public Schools, which Carvalho led before joining LAUSD. However, he has said that he had nothing to do with that contract. Carvalho also has denied personal involvement in the selection of AllHere for the AI project in Los Angeles.
At the time of the indictment, Carvalho said he would appoint a task force to examine what went wrong with the L.A. Unified project and to chart a path forward. There is no evidence he ever followed through. There have been no announcements of a task force being appointed or of a task force meeting.
In September, the Los Angeles Board of Education unanimously voted to retain Carvalho for another four years, at an annual salary of $440,000. Board President Scott Schmerelson said at the time that the superintendent “has shown steady leadership during challenging times.”
At noon Wednesday, school district officials posted a new closed-session meeting of the Board of Education, set for Thursday afternoon. The only listed item for the meeting is, “Public Employment: General Superintendent of Schools.”
Media swarmed outside LAUSD headquarters early Wednesday as staff members shuffled in and out of the building. Reporters similarly gathered near 36th and Parker streets, across from Carvalho’s three-bedroom home, as a helicopter hovered above.
Among the small number of curious onlookers were several students from nearby San Pedro High School.
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Independent experts will be asked to look at what went amiss with LAUSD’s AI effort and helped plan next steps in the ongoing but stalled strategy.
Kyle Ronnholm, 17, said he was in auto shop when he started hearing news about the raid.
“We got curious,” he said. “You don’t wake up on a random Wednesday just thinking I’m going to see my own superintendent being raided by the FBI. It’s pretty crazy.”
He and a few other students walked over and saw three unmarked vehicles and several men wearing jackets with FBI lettering. He said they counted about five federal agents.
Kyle and other students said the agents left shortly thereafter. He and others said they didn’t notice any items being taken from the house.
John Schafer, 62, who lives two doors from Carvalho, said he was at home having coffee with his wife when he heard a siren shortly after 6 a.m. and heard someone commanding residents to stay in their house over a loudspeaker.
“I thought it was some kind of medical emergency,” Schafer said.
He said he looked out his window and saw two cars in the street and a federal agent in tactical gear pointing a rifle toward the superintendent’s house.
Schafer said he didn’t like the way the operation was carried out, given the brandishing of firearms.
“I really think they wanted eyes on this,” he said. “It bugged me.”
Carvalho previously came under scrutiny from the Miami-Dade school system’s inspector general in 2020. Carvalho had helped solicit a $1.57-million donation from an online instruction company for a foundation that Carvalho oversees. The company had a contract pending with the district. Once hired, the company provided an online platform that was mired in problems and was quickly scrapped, the Miami Herald reported.
In June 2021, the inspector general concluded that the donation, which was meant to benefit teachers, did not violate state or district ethics policies but created “the appearance of impropriety,” and that the foundation, which Carvalho had started, should return the funds. The foundation instead distributed the money in $100 gift certificates to teachers, according to the Miami Herald.
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The Justice Department has petitioned to join a lawsuit challenging LAUSD’s decades-old desegregation policy that provides extra resources and smaller classes to predominantly minority schools.
Carvalho and other L.A. Unified officials have been outspoken critics of the Trump administration. And L.A. Unified has previously landed on the administration’s list of targets, including this month, when the U.S. Justice Department petitioned to join a lawsuit alleging that L.A. Unified discriminates against white students by providing additional resources to schools with a nonwhite population of 70% or more.
Times staff writer Christopher Buchanan contributed to this report.
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Brittny Mejia is a Metro reporter covering federal courts and immigration for the Los Angeles Times. She was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 2021 for her investigation with colleague Jack Dolan that exposed failures in Los Angeles County’s safety-net healthcare system. She joined The Times in 2014.
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Richard Winton is an investigative crime writer for the Los Angeles Times and part of the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for public service in 2011. Known as @lacrimes on Twitter, during almost 30 years at The Times he also has been part of the breaking news staff that won Pulitzers in 1998, 2004 and 2016.
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Ruben Vives is a general assignment reporter for the Los Angeles Times. A native of Guatemala, he got his start in journalism by writing for The Times’ Homicide Report in 2007. He helped uncover the financial corruption in the city of Bell that led to criminal charges against eight city officials. The 2010 investigative series won the Pulitzer Prize for public service and other prestigious awards.
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Howard Blume covers education for the Los Angeles Times. He’s won the top investigative reporting prize from the L.A. Press Club and print Journalist of the Year from the L.A. Society of Professional Journalists chapter. He recently retired “Deadline L.A.,” a past honoree for best public-affairs radio program, which he produced and co-hosted on KPFK-FM (90.7) for 15 years. He teaches tap dancing and has two superior daughters.
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