On May 6, 2022, New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli and the Onondaga County District Attorney William Fitzpatrick announced that a teacher [Educator] employed in a school district's "after-school program" [The Twilight Program] to assist students in need of support to graduate "on time" plead guilty to corrupting the government in the 3rd Degree, admitting his having submitted submitting false time cards to the school district.*
This investigation was the result of the coordinated efforts of the New York State Comptroller’s Office and the Onondaga County District Attorney’s Office.
“Abuse of public funds should never be tolerated, but is particularly egregious when an educator takes funds meant to improve students’ lives,” said Comptroller DiNapoli. “I thank District Attorney Fitzpatrick for his continuing partnership in combating public corruption and for holding [Educator] accountable.”
Teachers participating in the district’s Twilight Program receive additional compensation for teaching classes to Twilight participants. As the program coordinator, Educator was in charge of the Twilight teaching schedule and also received additional compensation for his services at Twilight.
From 2016-2018, Educator regularly left his Twilight position early but submitted time cards that inflated the number of hours he had actually worked at Twilight. He also directed certain Twilight teachers to submit false time sheets that reported that they were at work when they were not.
Educator was arrested in May of 2021, together with two Twilight teachers. The cases involving these other Twilight teachers are still pending.
* Educator also agreed to resign from his employment with the school district.
New York Public Personnel Law Handbooks
The Discipline Book - A concise guide to disciplinary actions involving public officers and employees in New York State set out as an e-book. For more about this electronic handbook, click HERE.
A Reasonable Disciplinary Penalty Under the Circumstances- The text of this publication focuses on determining an appropriate disciplinary penalty to be imposed on an employee in the public service in instances where the employee has been found guilty of misconduct or incompetence. For more information about this e-book click HERE.