Jetting Off to Jail - GOP Roslyn Schools Chief Pleads Guilty to Theft

[President Jesus]

Former Roslyn schools chief Frank Tassone pleaded guilty Monday to grand larceny charges for what the state comptroller has called the ''most extraordinary theft'' from a school system ''in American history.''

Tassone, 58, of Manhattan, entered the plea before Nassau County Judge Alan Honorof, admitting that he took millions in taxpayer money to finance a lavish lifestyle that included European jaunts on the supersonic Concorde.

continued...

also: Frank Tassone's campaign contributions

[Judi Lynn]

1. Omigod! This is one GOP story for the books!

I had to get a photo of this guy to study his face:



It came with a story which gets stranger, and stranger..........

The Bad Superintendent
To the Harvard-obsessed parents of Roslyn, New York, Frank Tassone appeared to be the ideal schools chief. Then $8 million went missing, Tassone became a prime suspect, and the details of his secret double life began to emerge.

By Robert Kolker
Tassone after his July 6 arrest. (Photo credit: Nassau County Police Dept.)
For the first time in his long, charmed career, Frank Tassone had a problem. The erudite, widely admired superintendent of the Roslyn, Long Island, school district—the North Shore public-school system he had managed to make, based on test scores, one of the ten best in America—found himself confronted in the fall of 2002 with a rather awkward, potentially embarrassing situation. His assistant superintendent for business had been caught stealing $250,000, writing school checks to cover her credit-card bills and impetuously racking up mammoth purchases at a Home Depot several towns away. And the school-board members were sitting in the district’s conference room, waiting for Tassone to tell them what to do.


If you want a job where you get blame for everything, credit for nothing, and no real reward, try running for the Roslyn school board. Everyone on the North Shore has a child who is a genius, or demands extra attention, or has a guidance counselor who needs some sense talked into him. In darker moments, it’s you against the community you hoped to serve, with only the superintendent—the pro—to help you with the tough decisions. The pro, in this case, was Tassone, always dressed in the freshly pressed wardrobe of a CEO, with the academic pedigree and easygoing authority of a literature professor. That night, Tassone made a moving, eloquent argument for compassion and leniency. The culprit, Pam Gluckin, had tearfully confessed, he said. Her marriage was falling apart, she was ill, she’d been desperate. And if the board didn’t press charges, she’d agree to quietly resign, give up her administrator’s license, and give back the money right away.
(snip/...)

http://newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/urban/features/9908/

[LiberalEsto]

2. "My child is Gifted & Talented, or ELSE"

This same attitude prevails here in Montgomery County, Maryland. Our schools are excellent, but so competitive that kids have nervous breakdowns. My kids, when they were in public school (now in college), knew kids who dreaded going home with almost all As and one B on a report card. Getting a B meant they were going to get a beating.

[brentspeak]

6. I can't stand parent who feel their kids are entitled

to admission to the most presitigious universities in America. In fact, I can't stand today's culture of "the most prestigious universities", the whole "my college is better than your college" elitist B.S.

Heck, Princeton and Brown practically hand out A's to students like they were Halloween candies. Then those catered-to Ivy League graduates are given a huge leg-up when it comes to graduate school admissions and job offers.

[Lilyhoney]

3. I just can't find the words to comment. nt

[goclark]

4. Are you noticing more of them going to jail?

Huuum, the wheels are turning.

Now for the big fat ROVE fish!

[Judi Lynn]

5. I found a contribution...

Tassone, Frank A Dr. (Roslyn Union Free Schol Dst), (Zip code: 11576) $300 to NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEE on 06/06/03

http://www.city-data.com/elec/elec-ROSLYN-NY.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm not too skilled at this kind of thing, yet. I checked your link and couldn't get it to work, so just checked google.

He does seem quite Republican!

[President Jesus]

7. um yeah, I gave that link in the original post (nt)

[DiverDave]

8. You silly people, don't you know that, as a republican, your money

is MY MONEY??

Goddamn, if you didn't want me to steal it, why did you put me IN CHARGE OF IT!!??

The sense of entitlement that these bastards have is unfuckingbelievable.

[tanyev]

9. Straight from the GOP playbook:

Then, in May, the roof fell in. According to Nassau County prosecutors, Frank Tassone had spent his twelve years in Roslyn quietly running one of the most audacious scams ever to afflict a public-school system. The coffers were plundered in practically every imaginable way—expense-account padding, vendor-bidding violations, check-record fabrications, even the creation of phony businesses. Tassone allegedly had the district pay for two trips to London on the Concorde, one for $20,000 and another for $30,000, including $1,800-a-night suites, and a half-dozen jaunts to Las Vegas with his friends—including Roslyn High’s popular principal, Jay Stoller—where the district even staked some of Tassone’s gambling money. The D.A. says that by the time he was arrested on July 6, Tassone had saved enough money to transfer $300,000 to bank accounts in his sisters’ names.

We know about plundering in Iraq and after Katrina. What else don't we know about?