Schools Chief and Roommate Inflated Bills in Scam, Officials Say
By BRUCE LAMBERT, NY TIMES, June 9, 2005

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GARDEN CITY, N.Y., June 8 -The former superintendent of Roslyn's schools helped his longtime roommate inflate bills as a contractor to the school district and then shared in the money, according to new criminal charges disclosed on Wednesday.

That charge was among several included in indictments unsealed in Nassau County Court here. Prosecutors also detailed a scheme in which they said the district's former business manager used corporate names to divert public funds to herself.

The amounts specified in the indictments - $219,000 of the roommate's contracting fees that went to the superintendent, and $314,459 diverted by the business manager - are a fraction of the estimated $11.2 million that auditors and prosecutors say was stolen from the Roslyn School District over several years.

Over all, investigators say, the former superintendent, Frank A. Tassone, took more than $2 million; the former business manager, Pamela Gluckin, took more than $4 million; and her niece Debra Rigano, a former school accounting clerk, took about $780,000.

The proceeds went for varied goods and services, including artwork, jewelry, foreign trips, meals, entertainment, home furnishings, home mortgages and more than $1 million in cash withdrawals from automated teller machines.

A Nassau County grand jury is still investigating the case, and the indictment of more people is "certainly possible," said the assistant district attorney in charge of the case, Peter Mancuso.

All four defendants named so far entered not guilty pleas at their arraignments on Wednesday and were released by Judge Alan L. Honorof: Ms. Gluckin, 59, of Bellmore; Ms. Rigano, 46, of Mamaroneck; Dr. Tassone, 58, of Manhattan; and his roommate for the past 33 years, Stephen Signorelli, 60.

Outside the courtroom, Dr. Tassone's lawyer, Edward T. Jenks, accused Ms. Gluckin of being "the absolute mastermind" behind the district's corruption and speculated that she was negotiating with the prosecutors to get a reduced sentence. He noted that she and her niece were allowed to enter the court on their own, while Dr. Tassone and Mr. Signorelli were handcuffed and guarded.

The prosecutors declined to comment on whether any defendants were cooperating but said the handcuffing had followed procedure, because Dr. Tassone and his roommate were arraigned on new charges, and there were no new counts against Ms. Gluckin and her niece. Ms. Gluckin's lawyer, Victor Mevorah, did not return a call seeking comment.

The other three defendants had previously been arrested on charges of grand larceny, but Mr. Signorelli was charged for the first time on Wednesday. A joint indictment accused him and Mr. Tassone of grand larceny, four counts of falsifying business records and four counts of filing false documents, all felonies.

Mr. Jenks has defended his client, Dr. Tassone, as an academic with lavish but legal benefits who was far removed from the district's business affairs.

But at a news conference after the arraignments, prosecutors painted a different picture, accusing Dr. Tassone of misconduct involving WordPower, the word-processing company that his roommate operated. WordPower was awarded a no-bid contract for its district work, in violation of the district's rules, and Mr. Tassone also broke the rules by not disclosing his connection with Mr. Signorelli, the prosecutors said.

"Signorelli, principal of WordPower, which prepared and printed handbooks for the school district, padded invoices with the assistance of Tassone" by submitting bills for printing and other services, said District Attorney Denis Dillon. "Many of the listed charges were fraudulent and were made up to pad the bills.

"These exorbitant bills would then be approved by Tassone, and then paid by the district," Mr. Dillon continued. "After Signorelli would receive payment, he would transfer a substantial portion of the amount he received from the district to Tassone." From 1999 to 2004, the district paid WordPower $572,000, and by 2002, Mr. Signorelli had transferred $219,000 of that to Mr. Tassone, Mr. Dillon said.

Mr. Signorelli's lawyer, Kenneth Weinstein, said his client's compensation was for work actually performed.

As for Ms. Gluckin, Mr. Dillon said she had created a fictitious company, Computer and Tech Services, to bilk the district out of $177,190. She also used two other corporate names, HRS and HSG, to divert an additional $137,269 in school funds for her own use, some of it to buy motorized water scooters, prosecutors said.

Mr. Mancuso said prosecutors have taken steps to seize $2.6 million in assets from the defendants.

Report on the Corruption in the Hempstead Union Free School District, Long Island, New York

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Roslyn, Long Island, NY: The Enron of Education Fraud and Corruption