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Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Investigating the Investigators. Sort by date Show all posts
Showing posts sorted by relevance for query Investigating the Investigators. Sort by date Show all posts

Monday, May 26, 2014

The Gill Commission Report (1990) and the Denial of Due Process Rights By the "Investigators" in the Special Commissioner of Investigation (SCI) Office

Anyone in the NYC public school system today must read an article I wrote in 2009 for my website Parentadvocates.org on the establishment of the office of the Special Commissioner of Investigation (SCI). The way that Mike Bloomberg and his appointed non-Attorney, Richard Condon, family friend of Rose Gill Hearn and her dad James Gill, have used their authority to destroy lives and fracture due process is astounding and, in my opinion, ugly.

SCI office at 80 Maiden Lane

Parents, teachers, administrators, and children are made victims by so-called "investigators" who are given immunity as they falsify records, change careers and commit fraud.

My highlighting these agents of doom is part of my expose of the harm that the Department of Education continues to do to innocent people, all for political/financial gain.

By the way, former Department of Investigation head Rose Gill Hearn now works for Bloomberg Associates, of course......and the Campaign Finance Board. She's really busy.

More to come.

Betsy Combier

Dear Mike and Joel: Give Us the Money
The Arrogance of Immunity and Fraud Behind Rose Gill Hearn, Richard Condon, SCI, OSI, and OEO
Lawrence Scott III, Agent of the NYC DOE Office of Special Investigations (OSI), Sexually Assaults Teacher Natalya Sokolson-Gordon at Her School, PS. 329 in Coney Island, Brooklyn
Secret Emails About Office of Special Investigations Being in Chaos

Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard Condon
Two Reports, "Investigating The Investigators", and 'The Gill Commission Report' (1990) Dont Improve New York City Public Schools

LINK
Editorial: Every person of any age or title who is involved with the NYC public school system is in danger, as long as Richard Condon is Special Commissioner of Investigation for the New York City Public Schools. I have finally copied two books published in March and April 1990 which show the corruption inside New York City's education department: "Investigating the Investigators" and "Findings and Recommendations of the Joint Commission on the Integrity of the Public Schools". Nothing has changed...in fact, the corruption is worse than ever. Betsy Combier





James Gill



On March 15, 1990, Mr. James F. Gill, the appointed Chairman of the Joint Commission on Integrity in the Public schools, wrote a letter to New York City Mayor David N. Dinkins, the Honorable Robert F. Wagner, Jr., President of the Board of Education, and the Honorable Joseph A. Fernandez, Chancellor, in which he expressed his dismay at incompetence of the Board of Education’s Inspector General, Michael P. Sofarelli:

“I am sad to report that the Commission found the Inspector General’s operation woefully inadequate. The office wastes scarce resources that should be devoted to investigating serious crime on ineptly-run investigations of internal management matters. The office lacks experienced personnel and meaningful supervision. The office does not keep track of it’s own work accurately or generate reliable statistics that would enable the public to assess it’s effectiveness.

Not surprisingly, therefore, the office has forfeited the confidence of the system’s employees: 41 percent of the teachers and supervisors who responded to our survey reported that they believed the Inspector General was either minimally effective or completely ineffective. This pervasive distrust of the system’s watchdog is a devastating indictment of the office’s performance and a critical impediment to effective policing.

Because of these findings, the Commission recommends that the Mayor immediately appoint a Special Commissioner to Investigate the Public School System. The new Commissioner should attack crime and corruption with the goal of building solid, prosecutable criminal cases against real criminals. The Commissioner’s staff should be an effective strike force ofcriminal attorneys, police officers, and investigators. The Commissioner’s office should – at least temporarily until it earns the confidence of parents, employees and the public at large – be independent of the Board of Education.”

(Yes, Mr. Sofarelli was removed, but he was then hired by Attorney General Eliot Spitzer to investigate Medicaid fraud in NYC, and the work was so bad that Pataki ordered an overhaul in 2005. Mr. Sofarelli 'retired' from investigating Medicaid in 2003. - Ed)

Mr. Gill then published his findings in a book, “Investigating the Investigators”, which I copied and have made available below:

Investigating the Investigators (Introduction – p. 43)
Investigating the Investigators (pp. 44 – 86)

One month later, Mr. Gill wrote to the same people a letter that became the introduction to his final report:

“Dear Sirs,

This is the final report of the Joint Commission on Integrity in the Public schools, and it contains the Commission’s findings and recommendations I regret to report that we found serious corruption or impropriety almost wherever we looked”…

Findings and Recommendations Of The Joint Commission On Integrity In the Public Schools (Introduction – p. viii)
New Tammany Hall pp. ix – xviii
New Tammany Hall pp.1-37
New Tammany Hall pp. 38-77
New Tammany Hall pp. 78-102
New Tammany Hall pp. 103-163
New Tammany Hall pp. 164-193

Executive Order No. 11 was issued on June 28, 1990 by NYC Mayor David Dinkins, creating the office of the new Deputy Commissioner.

Rose Gill Hearn
Rose Gill Hearn
The facts of the corruption of New York City public schools was very much in the media in 1989-1990:

Panel Urges Watchdog Agency for N.Y.C. Schools
By Ann Bradley, Education Week, Published: June 13, 1990
LINK

A commission charged with investigating corruption in the New York City schools has released a final report calling for the establishment of an independent investigatory agency appointed by the mayor to monitor wrongdoing in the district.

The final report of the Joint Commission on Integrity in the Public Schools, released May 31, summarized findings that had previously been made public.

But it also contained new criticism of the board of education's procedures for disciplining teachers and principals, and fresh disclosures of $94,000 worth of missing computer equipment in one community school district. The report revealed, in addition, that the same community district had spent $17,000 to give its employees electronic paging devices.

In a news conference held to announce the report's release, James F. Gill, chairman of the commission, blamed Robert F. Wagner Jr., president of the board of education, for many of the system's failings.
Mr. Gill called the board a "sleepy-eyed lumbering brontosaurus primarily interested in grazing."
When asked who was to blame for the situation, Mr. Gill responded: "I'll say it--Bob Wagner. He's the president of the board of education. Bob Wagner. Bob Wagner. Bob Wagner."

However, Mr. Gill said in an interview last week that he had "no intention of attacking Bob Wagner personally."
"I hold him in high regard," he said. "The board of education is the group that has overall responsibility for everything in the system, and it should be accountable."

Inspector General's Powers
Mr. Wagner said last week that he attributes Mr. Gill's comments to the fact that the two disagree over what powers an independent inspector general should be given.
The board president said he favors giving the inspector general special prosecutory powers; Mr. Gill said such powers would conflict with the duties of the regular prosecutors' offices.

Mr. Gill charged that the board of education's current inspector general, Michael Sofarelli, has been lax in conducting investigations. "It's an investigatory failure, not a prosecutorial problem," he said last week.
Mayor David Dinkins is expected to make a recommendation on the issue within a month.
Mr. Wagner also noted that several of the commission's criticisms, including the charge that the board had failed to discipline teachers, were in areas affected by state regulations that were not within the board's control.
The commission was appointed by former Mayor Edward I. Koch and the board of education in 1988. The most dramatic moment of its investigation came last year, when the board of Community School District 27 was suspended following allegations of corruption made by Colman Genn, the district's superintendent.
Mr. Genn, who had secretly taped conversations with board members and school employees, testified that board members had made it clear his contract would not be renewed unless he agreed to hire their friends and political associates. (See Education Week, Nov. 1, 1989.)

The report recommended that the New York legislature give district superintendents, rather than community school boards, the power to hire teachers' aides and paraprofessionals. It did not endorse Chancellor Joseph A. Fernandez's proposal to take away local boards' power to appoint school administrators.

June 1, 1990
Wagner Faulted for Schools' Failures by Inquiry Panel Head
By JOSEPH BERGER, NY TIMES

LEAD: The chairman of a commission investigating New York City's schools yesterday called the Board of Education a 'sleepy-eyed lumbering brontosaurus primarily interested in grazing' and singled out its president, Robert F. Wagner Jr., for blame.

The chairman of a commission investigating New York City's schools yesterday called the Board of Education a 'sleepy-eyed lumbering brontosaurus primarily interested in grazing' and singled out its president, Robert F. Wagner Jr., for blame.
'I'll say it - Bob Wagner,' said James F. Gill, chairman of the Joint Commission on Integrity in the Public Schools, when asked whom he was holding responsible for the school system's continuing failures. 'He's the president of the Board of Education. Bob Wagner. Bob Wagner. Bob Wagner.'

In a telephone interview later, Mr. Gill said: 'I don't mean to single him out, but a lot of these things happened on his watch and he is the chief executive officer. So he along with the entire board has to share responsibility when things go wrong, particularly when we make revelations that they haven't acted upon.'

Mr. Gill made his initial remarks at a news conference at the midtown office of his law firm to release the final report on the commission's 17 months of work. The 193-page document contained fresh disclosures about $94,000 of missing computers in one Bronx district and new criticism of the central board for what it said was an inability to discipline teachers.

'An Excuse for Failure'
Mr. Gill, whose commission was created by former Mayor Edward I. Koch and the Board of Education in the wake of a series of disclosures about school corruption, attacked the central board, its bureaucracy and its leadership for what he said was a desire to use the decentralization of the system 20 years ago into 32 local districts 'as an excuse for failure.'
'They seem to have believed that they could just let those districts stew in their own juices, just send them a memo or directive once in a blue moon and then let them sink or swim on their own,' Mr. Gill said.

But even more startling was the attack on Mr. Wagner. The son of a former New York City Mayor, the grandson of a former United States Senator and a confidant of Mr. Koch, Mr. Wagner has been been one of the city's most prominent political fixtures for two decades and played a key role in appointing both the commission and Mr. Gill. By picturing himself as a reformer intent on overhauling a shabby school system, he has generally been able to elude the criticism that regularly befalls that system. His term as board president, a part-time position for which he is paid $20,000 a year, expires at the end of this month. In an interview yesterday, Mr. Wagner, board president since January 1986, dismissed much of the criticism as unfair, saying Mr. Gill was attacking failings that he and the other board members can do little about. He spoke of his battle for legislation that would abolish the Board of Examiners, the agency that tests and licenses teachers, and give the chancellor a greater role in choosing district superintendents.

Mr. Gill said Mr. Wagner was 'very dedicated' and his 'heart was in the right place.' But, he said, he and the rest of the board were 'lumbering' along and had not even responded promptly to repeated findings by his commission of corruption and inefficiency within the school system.

Criticism on Sofarelli
Mr. Wagner, he said, did not dismiss his Inspector General, Michael Sofarelli, even though the commission revealed significant inadequacies in how the office conducted its investigations of wrongdoing by employees. 'Why would you want to continue a guy who has run the office in the way he had run it,' Mr. Gill said in an interview. Mr. Wagner, he said, also did not 'exert his influence' to obtain the removal of the chief investigator for the Board of Examiners after the commission exposed serious flaws in the screening process for new teachers. That process, Mr. Gill said, permitted a teacher convicted of sexual abuse to get appointed to a Bronx junior high school.

More than a year ago, he said, his commission revealed that the board was not certifying parents for eligibility to vote in school board elections, thereby exposing the balloting to fraud.
But the officials responsible, Mr. Gill said, were never disciplined. Eight months ago, he said, the commission tape-recorded a Queens teacher, Richard Lipkowitz, as he boasted of his ability to influence the appointments of the district's administrators. The charges against that teacher, Mr. Gill said, are 'still pending.'
'This kind of inertia, stagnation and inaction is extremely distressing,' Mr. Gill said. 'The kids deserve better. They deserve leaders who will act on their behalf and act in a timely way.'

Roots of the Problem
In response, Mr. Wagner said the disciplinary process for teachers is controlled by state laws and union contracts that carefully protect teacher rights and salaries until the proceedings have run their course. The response to the election certification, he said, was bedeviled by a faulty legal opinion, and, he said, affected only a few voters in any case. The Board of Examiners, he said, is a independent agency that is not under the control of the Board of Education.

Mr. Wagner speculated that Mr. Gill's harsh words have roots in their disagreement over what kind of office should police corruption within the schools. Mr. Gill would like to see the present Inspector General replaced by a Special Commissioner appointed by the mayor who would have subpoena power and a staff of professional investigators. Mr. Wagner prefers an independent special prosecutor who would also be able to bring cases to trial. Mr. Gill thinks Mr. Wagner's proposal impractical since it would be opposed by the city's district attorneys.

Mr. Wagner has also expressed displeasure with the personal attacks on the Inspector General, Mr. Sofarelli, in an earlier report by the Gill Commission.
'It's a reflection of Jim's impatience about the pace of change within the system and how difficult it to make things happen,' Mr. Wagner said.

New Disclosures
In contrast to the criticism of Mr. Wagner, Mr. Gill used only complimentary language in talking about Schools Chancellor Joseph A. Fernandez. But Mr. Fernandez was said by aides to be unhappy with the Gill Commission's refusal to endorse his effort to strip the 32 community school boards of their power to appoint principals and assistant principals.

These aides, who asked for anonymity, said Mr. Gill had personally indicated to Mr. Fernandez that the boards, many of which have been implicated in patronage, should not be permitted to appoint school administrators. But the aides said Mr. Gill then found himself outweighed by three members of the commission and sought to preserve its unity. The account was confirmed by two officials familiar with the Gill Commission's deliberations.

The report was largely a review of the commission's findings over its 17-month life. But there were several new disclosures. On a single day last September, the commission's investigators visited 17 of the 33 schools in School District 9 in the southwest Bronx and found that 80 computers, or 17 percent of those purchased for the schools, and 37 printers, or 26 percent of those purchased, could not be located. Many of these, the investigators later discovered, were moved to other districts but no records were kept of the transfers.

Others 'were left sitting in storage' and went unused by students. Still others, the report said, 'simply disappeared,' though the investigators could not determine whether they were stolen or misplaced.
The commission also found that District 9 spent $17,000 a year so that 68 officials could have beepers, or paging devices. It also found that the district became embroiled in a scheme to allow 40 relatives and friends of district employees to have beepers, but that in many cases the district was not repaid for their use.

The commission also took issue with the school system's unwillingness to discipline teachers. In the 1988-89 school year, it said, 99.7 percent of the system's 65,000 teachers were rated satisfactory, a level of quality that Mr. Gill, a lawyer in private practice, said sardonically could not be matched by any other profession, even his own. Only 12 teachers were dismissed or forced to resign as a result of disciplinary proceedings.

In its recommendations, the commission asked the State Legislature to give district superintendents, rather than local school boards, the power to hire teacher aides and paraprofessionals. It asked the central board to articulate clear policies about discipline 'so that those in charge of discipline are no longer left at sea about what they should consider misconduct and what punishments they should seek.'

March 16, 1990
Investigators For Schools Are Criticized
By JOSEPH BERGER, NY TIMES

LEAD: In a stinging report issued yesterday, the commission examining the New York City public school system said the work of the Board of Education's chief investigative arm was 'reminiscent of the Keystone Kops' and deserved blame for much of the corruption and crime within the system.

In a stinging report issued yesterday, the commission examining the New York City public school system said the work of the Board of Education's chief investigative arm was 'reminiscent of the Keystone Kops' and deserved blame for much of the corruption and crime within the system.

The most dramatic example of ineffectiveness by the school system's Office of Inspector General, the Gill Commission charged, came in the case of Matthew Barnwell, a Bronx principal arrested by the New York City police in November 1988 on charges of buying crack. The Inspector General, the commission said, learned that Mr. Barnwell was using drugs a year before the arrest, but bungled its investigation with 'aimless, lethargic and sporadic' work.

'The investigation was so shoddy that it could be a textbook example of how not to conduct a criminal investigation,' said the report by the commission, which is known formally as the Joint Commission on Integrity in the Public Schools.

Unit Established in '80

The arrest of Mr. Barnwell set off a wave of investigations into allegations of corruption in the school system. This week, three former Bronx school officials who were indicted in one of the inquiries were acquitted of charges stemming from the removal of a baby grand piano from a school. [Page B3.] In its report yesterday, the Gill Commission recommended that the office be replaced with a 'special commissioner to investigate the public schools' who would be appointed by the mayor, be in charge of a squad of police officers, and be given the power to issue subpoenas and make arrests, powers the Inspector General's Office now lacks.

The Inspector General's Office was set up in 1980 to serve as the school system's internal watchdog and handle a wide variety of crimes and violations of school regulations, including thefts of property, political hiring and abuse of students.

In December 1988, after Mr. Barnwell's arrest and several newspaper accounts of corruption, the Gill Commission was created. One of its purposes was to look at how well the school system was policing itself.

The commission's study, titled 'Investigating the Investigator' constituted a 'scathing indictment' of 'bloated, largely ineffective operation whose investigations are often reminiscent of the Keystone Kops,' the panel's chairman, James F. Gill, said at a news conference.

'Significant Illicit Activity'

The Inspector General's 60 investigators, the report said, lack law-enforcement and legal experience, are hamstrung by poor supervision and are not scrupulous about protecting the confidentiality of their sources.

The office's $3.8 million dollar annual budget, Mr. Gill said, 'is squandered on trivial matters instead of focused on significant illicit activity' and more energy seems devoted to 'papering the file than to detecting wrongdoing.'

'I cannot escape the conclusion that some of the responsibility for the corruption that we have uncovered in the school system rests squarely on Inspector General Michael Sofarelli's office,' Mr. Gill said.

In a response, Mr. Sofarelli said the report was 'written in a sensational headline-hunting way' and took unnecessary 'cheap shots at him and his staff. He said his office's inquiries had led to 70 arrests since 1987, including the conviction of 26 school building inspectors charged in a kickback scheme and the suspension or indictments of three school district superintendents.

Low Salaries

He said his office, like the offices of the 26 other inspectors generals at city agencies, was hobbled by low starting salaries for investigators, who are paid about $25,000 to start, which made it difficult to recruit the best investigators or former police officers.

Mr. Sofarelli's deputy, Conrad W. Reitz, said investigators for the Gill Commssion had themselves bungled the arrest of a high school teacher who was buying drugs.

The Gill Commission saved its most vitriolic language for a case study of the Inspector General's handling of a complaint against Mr. Barnwell. On November 24, 1987, a year before Mr. Barnwell's arrest, the board received an anonymous telephone call from a teacher at Public School 53 who said Mr. Barnwell was 'discriminating against non-blacks' in hiring, was borrowing money from teachers without repaying them and was 'a drug user.'

One Interview a Month

Mr. Sofarelli, the report said, was informed of the call the following day, but the first interview to try to confirm the allegation was not conducted until March 10, more than three months later. A chronology provided in the commission's report indicates that the investigator on the case conducted interviews at the rate of one a month with parents, teachers and administrators.

Before any action could be taken by the office, Mr. Barnwell was arrested - without the office's knowledge or participation - by the New York City police as he tried to buy two vials of crack on a Manhattan street. He was convicted of drug possession in January and dismissed.

Mr. Gill said that the Inspector General should have begun a prompt surveillance of Mr. Barnwell, rather than concentrating on interviews with his colleagues. The office's investigator, he said, failed to consult the board's own files on Mr. Barnwell, which would have revealed earlier complaints that Mr. Barnwell 'sat in his office all day playing video games.'

In his rebuttal, Mr. Sofarelli said the original allegation of drug use was included almost as an 'afterthought' in the memorandum he received and so failed to trigger the appropriate urgency. Moreover, he said, the office handles 2,900 complaints a year and many of them are efforts to 'get back' at people.

Three Lawyers

His office's investigator was handling many other cases, he said. And his office, he said, did not try to shadow Mr. Barnwell because it was never told where he used drugs and 'we couldn't follow the man around for 24 hours.'

Mr. Gill's concerns about the Inspector General were more sweeping than just the Barnwell case. The office, he said, had only three lawyers, and only one of those - Mr. Sofarelli, a former prosecutor in Brooklyn - has any experience in criminal matters. Only one of the office's 60 investigators, Mr. Gill said, has a background in police work.

'Sofarelli was on the scene for nine years,' Mr. Gill said. 'He should have done something about it.'

'If he was working for me, he'd go,' Mr. Gill added. Mr. Sofarelli serves at the pleasure of the 7-member board of education and was not hired by the chancellor.

Mr. Gill also told of breaches in confidentiality, including one investigator who left his name and title at the school that was being investigated. Such breaches, Mr. Gill said may explain why Colman Genn, the superintendent of District 27 in Brooklyn, went to the commission rather than the Inspector General with his startling allegations of political hiring.

Mr. Gill said that a survey of school employees taken by the commission showed that 44 percent of those interviewed would feel 'uncomfortable bringing a complaint' to the Inspector General.

In responses to the commission, both Mayor David N. Dinkins and Robert F. Wagner Jr., indicate interest in or support for supportive the idea of creating an investigative agency totally independent of the Board of Education. Mr. Wagner, however, pointed out that unless salaries were raised, the independent office would also not attract the best law and police school graduates.

October 24, 1989
New York Times
Tapes of School Officials: Ante Becomes 'Little Higher'

LEAD: These are excerpts from conversations taped by Colman Genn, superintendent of School District 27 in Queens, with James C. Sullivan, the school board treasurer, Samuel Granirer, board vice president, and William Sampol, a former Republican state legislative aide seeking a $42,000-a-year district job, and others over a course of seven months.
These are excerpts from conversations taped by Colman Genn, superintendent of School District 27 in Queens, with James C. Sullivan, the school board treasurer, Samuel Granirer, board vice president, and William Sampol, a former Republican state legislative aide seeking a $42,000-a-year district job, and others over a course of seven months. The opening excerpts are from a conversation that generally revolved around Mr. Sullivan's and Mr. Granirer's complaints that Mr. Genn had hired too many black assistant principals and not enough of the people they wanted. Feb. 6, 1989
GENN: Jimmy, you're not going to take all the blacks off the list because . . .
SULLIVAN: Yes. If you're gonna put them in, we're gonna take them out. Yeah. If there was movement to play, I'd play. You know what I mean? (A few minutes later)
SULLIVAN: And a year from now, your contract is going to be up. And I'm telling you this, as your friend. As board members who'll probably be sitting here.
GENN: I'm sure you will all be sitting here.
SULLIVAN: O.K. Do you understand what the considerations become then? And how the ante becomes, becomes a little higher under those new guidelines?
GENN: I understand, but I can't let that become.
GRANIRER: (Unintelligible)
GENN: How I run my life . . .
SULLIVAN: I understand that. But you understand what our concerns are.
GENN: I understand that I would not get another contract.
SULLIVAN: It's possible. Sept. 13, 1989
SULLIVAN: You know, nobody's looking to fleece anybody. Honestly we're not, Cole.
GENN: Yeah, I understand.
SULLIVAN: If I thought, if I thought that they were really hurting instruction, wanting a whole (expletive) piece that would make a big, major difference, I wouldn't go for it. Honestly, at the end of the day, I'm a political leader - that's why I'm here.
GENN: Yeah.
SULLIVAN: And I make sure my people get (expletive) jobs. When I came into this district, and it's true, Cole, there were three Irish supervisors out of 157 people. Now, when the blacks come up, they say, 'Well, don't tell us that there aren't enough blacks that are qualified.' That's true.
GENN: Mmm-hmm.
SULLIVAN: But don't expect me to believe that about my own people either.
GENN: Mmm-hmm.
SULLIVAN: Except that the avenues were never there for them to participate, because Marvin (Aaron, former district superintendent) hired out of the synagogue. That's between you and I.' Sept. 18, 1989
GENN: You left a resume with Tony (an unidentified district worker) .
SAMPOL: Yes, I did.
GENN: O.K., you brought him the resume. The resume that you brought him is, really doesn't focus at any education kinds of activities.
SAMPOL: O.K.
GENN: Umm, and it's my understanding that, according to Jimmy (Sullivan) , that he wants me to tailor it, the job description, umm, to meet you skills and your background.
SAMPOL: O.K. Or I can change my resume around a little if you like. What, whatever.
GENN: Yeah. I think I'll . . . if you could get me a current resume.
SAMPOL: O.K.
GENN: And focus on the educational things that you've done.
SAMPOL: O.K.
GENN: Umm, and deal with those kinds of issues, umm. I can then either sit with you or, umm, you know, work it out with you.
SAMPOL: O.K.

See also the NY Times' articles on District 27.
Ed Stancik investigated. (I love the last line of his report, in a footnote p. 9:"...Ms. Russell('s)...motivation was political self-preservation, not prejudice.")

Genn died at the age of 68 in July, 2004 - Editor

Ed Stancik was appointed as the first Special Commissioner of Investigation of the New York Public Schools in 1992. Hisindependence from the Board of Education and the Mayor bothered both Commissioner Hearn and Mayor Bloomberg, so when he died at the age of 47 on March 12, 2002, there was alot of talk about how to control this office...so that "favored" administrators, teachers, and parents would not be caught. Mayor Bloomberg issued EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 15 on June 18, 2002, which changed the Special Commissioner's required background from an Attorney to a person with "at least five years of law enforcement experience". Then, Rose Gill Hearn, the Commissioner of the Department of Investigation, (and James Gill's daughter) appointed her dad's friend, Richard Condon.

Mr. Condon is not an attorney, as required in Executive Order No. 11, he was appointed by his friend Commissioner Rose Gill Hearn after Mayor Bloomberg changed EXECUTIVE ORDER 11 to EXECUTIVE ORDER 15, which opened the door to an individual who was not an attorney to fill the Special Commissioner's job. It is fair to say after speaking with parents, teachers, and administrators of NYC public schools that Mr. Condon has brought the NYC Public School system to a new level of lawlessness and corruption. The case of Teddy Smith is an example of this. By all accounts, he has created a reign of terror that will never be forgotton, nor, sadly for the current education administration, forgiven.

See also "Investigating the Investigators and the Gill Commission Final Report"

Betsy Combier
Editor

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Investigating the Investigators and the Gill Commission Final Report



For many years I have looked for the two investigative reports published in March and April 1990 on the corruption inside New York City public schools, aided by the incompetency of the Inspector General Michael P. Sofarelli.



On January 12, 2009, I decided to stop in the Municipal Library (see picture above)at 31 Chambers Street (corner of Centre and Chambers, directly accross the street from the Manhattan Courts and inside the building of the Manhattan Surrogate Court)and see if I could copy the two books that have not, to my knowledge, been posted online:
"Investigating the Investigators: A Report on the Office of the Inspector General of the New York City Board of Education"; and, "Findings and Recommendations Of The Joint Commission On The Integrity In the Public Schools". I was given the approval to copy both reports, and I have made both available in this article on my website:

Two Reports, "Investigating The Investigators", and 'The Gill Commission Report' (1990) Dont Improve New York City Public Schools

These two reports are eye-openers for new parents and teachers and NYC BOE employees, but to old-timers in the system, the names of the people in these reports are well-known. No one who works for the "system" is ever gone for long. A report on the sex crimes of Jerry Olshaker and the cover-up by Howard Tames in the NYC BOE Personnel office is worth reading. And look at Bruce Irushalmi.

James Gill, the father of NYC Commissioner of the Department of Investigation (Rose Gill Hearn, at right), was appointed chair of the Joint Commission On Integrity in the Public Schools in 1989. He was a superb investigator, and produced the two best reports on public corruption that I have ever read. He recommended the removal of Michael P. Sofarelli, the Inspector General of the NYC Board of Education (who, after leaving the NYC BOE, Eliot Spitzer hired to investigate Medicaid fraud. He retired in 2003, and in 2005 Pataki started a new effort to rein in the Medicaid mess).


Ed Stancik (pictured at right) was the first Special Commissioner of Investigation, and he was ruthless in his independence from anyone. (See the report on former District 29 Superintendent Celeste Miller).

Both Rose Gill Hearn and Mayor Bloomberg didn't like this, so in 2002, after Mr. Stancik's death, Mayor Bloomberg changed Executive Order 11 which created the position of Special Commissioner to EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 15, which allowed a person who was NOT an Attorney to have the job. Newspapers were told to write about how Ed purged schools unnecessarily, and created a 'witch hunt'...but Richard Condon, his successor, has created something much worse, and is commended.


(From left to right) Special Commissioner of Investigation Edward Stancik, District Attorney Richard Brown, and Schools Chancellor Harold Levy announced the indictments of six individuals in what has been called "the fleecing of District 29.

Rose Gill Hearn then appointed her dad's friend Richard Condon. Both Mayor Bloomberg and Rose Gill Hearn made it clear that the investigators had to be under their control. SCI is, therefore, an agency that is not independent of the NYC BOE, despite statements from the investigators and Mr. Condon that they are not controlled by Joel Klein.



Indeed, the website of the Special Commissioner gives misinformation to those who would whistleblow their school or anyone who works there, by stating:
"Whether you work in the system, are a parent, a taxpayer, or a concerned individual, if you suspect wrongdoing at your local public school or elsewhere within the New York City Department of Education, contact us. Your identity can be kept confidential and City employees are protected against retaliation in the workplace."

This statement traps many. Ask yourself this question: "If I say something about the wrong-doing, and there is retaliation against me, what options to I have to remedy this situation, if I am fired, re-assigned, harmed, or my family is harmed?"
Answer: "If you do not have a $trillion dollars or a friend in the Governor's office, your options to fight the retaliation that will be forthcoming are few. Find a national reporter who will expose your school, instead".

As I have written in an earlier post, "News To Use", if you go to the City's Payrolls and type in Richard Condon's name, you weill find that he is paid by the "Department of Education, Administration", the same budget line that pays for Joel Klein and the Parent Coordinators, for starters. I spoke with an employee of DOI at 80 Maiden Lane, and he told me that everyone who works there is very angry that they are not allowed on the floor that Richard Condon's office is located on. See also my previous post, "Workplace Investigations: NYC Employees are in Danger"

We now know the kind of work that Richard Condon takes pride in:

New York City Teacher Theodore "Teddy" Smith and the Perfect Storm of Injustice


Theodore "Teddy" Smith Wins His NY State Supreme Court Appeal To Overturn Arbitrator Howard Edelman's 3020a Decision and Award
by Betsy Combier, Editor, Parentadvocates.org
LINK

New York State Supreme Court Judge Alice Schlesinger throws out arbitrator Howard Edelman's decision to punish excellent teacher Teddy Smith because, she writes, "Mr. Smith is challenging the decision and penalty…of the disciplinary process and finally and most importantly the performance of the second Arbitrator who decided the controversy based solely on the transcript of the proceedings before the first Arbitrator, thereby violating his due process right to a fair and impartial hearing...…It is fundamental to the fact finding process to be present when testimony is given, testimony which constitutes the evidence upon which the determination will be made...When an individual is denied fundamental due process, an argument that substantial evidence supports the decision is irrelevant."

NYC public school teacher Teddy Smith has fought City Hall since 2004 and has won a small but precedent-setting battle against Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Joel Klein, Richard Condon, and New York media who blindly follow the directives of the Special Commissioner and publish false information in order to "get" someone. Anyone. It could be you next time. Teddy refused to give up clearing his name and preserving his future. We salute him.

Theodore (Teddy) Smith was born and raised in Suffern, New York and graduated from Hampshire College with a BA degree, Goddard College with an MA, attended Sarah Lawrence as a special student, and has a BS degree from Empire State College, an obtained certification as a School Administrator from Fordham University. He has lived in New York City for over fifteen years.

He currently works as a account manager and on-air personality working afternoon drive for Central Broadcasting in Worchester County, Massachusetts; on-air personality for WGHT in North Jersey; WTBQ AM/FM in Orange County, NY, and WPAT Multi-cultural Broadcasting in New York. He has also worked full-time in New York City for the Department of Education as a physical education and health teacher, currently with a Supervisory Administrator’s License (SAS), with “satisfactory” service for over ten years, with tenure in 1999. Concurrently, Mr. Smith taught part-time for the United Nations After-school Program as a physical education and martial arts teacher for thirteen years.

Teddy was harassed into teaching a part-time gym class with more than 65 children (often almost 100 at one time) at The Museum School on West 17th street in Manhattan. He also has a heart condition for which he asked his Principal (Lindley Uehling) to be accommodated – although he was and is able to perform his job - but was turned down and his needs were ignored.

Timeline

1)On April 30, 2008, Teddy Smith won a decision from the Supreme Court of the State of New York regarding the attached matter against The New York City Department of Education. Entire file, documents and exhibits are filed at New York Sate Supreme Court, New York County, 60 Centre Street, New York, Index #117051/07. Attorney: Mr. William A. Gerard.

2)Richard Condon, Special Commissioner of Investigation, Gerald P. Conroy, Deputy Commissioner of Investigation and Michael Humphries, Investigator for The New York City Department of Education released a false and fraudulent report regarding Theodore Smith with respect to this same matter and arbitration.

3)First arbitrator, Jack Tillem, colluded and grievously misled the hearing and record by having off-the-record, ex parte conversations with Smith’s former attorney David Kearney of the Law Offices of Neal Brickman in New York, Teresa Europe, Deputy Counsel to the Chancellor of the Department of Education, and Susan Jalowski, Attorney for the Department of the Education. These off-the-record conversations were also held on cell phones at the point of decision and documented in the legal transcripts for the arbitration as well as in the Supreme Court decision reversing a second arbitrator’s, Howard Edelman, decision.

4)The New York Daily News and The Chief newspapers of New York City released falsified, inaccurate and unsubstantiated stories based upon a bogus report supplied by the New York City Department of Education in conjunction with an investigation led by the special commissioner, Richard Condon. The story in the Daily News was written by Carrie Melago. Carrie Melago stated that Mr. Smith made an alleged death threat to the arbitrator Jack Tillem. Jack Tillem never said that Mr. Smith had made a death threat against him. It was Smith’s former attorney David Kearney who falsely told Jack Tillem and the Department of Education attorneys in an off-the-record phone conversation, that Smith had made the alleged threat. Carrie Melago never interviewed Mr. Smith or his present attorney before having the story sent to press. In an email sent to Teddy Smith, Melago stated that she would write a follow-up story when he was vindicated. Smith was never found guilty. Richard Steier from The Chief also wrote a false and misleading story concerning Smith. He wrote that Teddy Smith allegedly threatened to kill the arbitrator, without interviewing Mr. Smith.

5)Lindley Uehling, former principal of the New York City Museum School in Manhattan and now in the Admissions Department of Hunter College High School in Manhattan has testified that Mr. Smith had oversized physical education classes of over 100 students, 75 students and other oversize classes while alone in the gym for months without any help from assistants. Uehling said that this was part of Mr. Smith’s job in documented testimony. Meanwhile, Ms. Uehling was violating the teacher’s contract by not informing the chancellor or teacher in writing that she was overseeing physical education classes in excess of 50 students.

6)Assistants that were assigned to Smith’s oversized classes three months after the school year also often did not report to the classes leaving Mr Smith alone with the oversized classes. Also, some of these assistants that were assigned to these classes were not state certified and were not certified in physical education. Uehling testified that for the first three months of the physical education program there was no gym to hold classes because there was a leak in the ceiling. The physical education classes that Mr. Smith was hired to teach was always considered a part-time program. This was considered an illegal program. In order to justify hiring Mr. Smith fulltime the principal inflated the class periods. Smith had a program where he taught 17 to 18 period per week. Former principal Uehling made the physical education program add up to 25 teaching periods per week by making Smith teach a class alone with over 100 students in the class for close to one year. By teacher’s contract, Smith was required to teach the entire school physical education and health classes at least three times per week. Uehling had him scheduled for only once per week for only one to two periods.

7)Smith and his council asked the arbitrator during his hearing in 2007 in to see the budget during the calendar year 2004-2005 to point out what must be discrepancies when he was teaching under such objectionable and illegal circumstances. They were denied access to the budget in any way by the arbitrator Jack Tillem during the hearing.

8)Teddy filed a Federal law suit against the City of New York Department of Education and individuals asserting disability retaliation, discrimination, retaliation, age discrimination, and slander.

9)Arbitrator Jack Tillem asked Smith’s former attorney David Kearney to bring a check with him for $1,600 to a hearing because Smith was sick the night before the hearing with a doctor’s note. The arbitrator had an ex parte conversation with former attorney David Kearney regarding Smith bringing the check for $1,600. This conversation was never placed in the record.

10)Principal Linda Uehling changed Smith’s grade in June, 2005. Class lists with the true amount of students in his classes were falsified.

11)Ted Smith was denied peer intervention which he requested in writing.

12)A report by the Department of Education confirms that during the 2004-2005 school year when Ted Smith was teaching 15 out of 21 left the school that year. The report shows that the school was in total chaos throughout that year.

13)An e-mail dated January, 2005 was sent from Department of Education Fay Pallen on her Blackberry device that was supposedly supposed to be sent to former principal Lindley Uehling. This e-mail was sent to Mr. Smith by mistake. The nature of this e-mail is entirely about the subject of how to simply get rid of Ted Smith by finding reasons giving him 2 unsatisfactory yearly ratings. Also, to get Victor Ramsey the former Director of Physical Education Region 9 in Manhattan, to write a negative evaluation about Mr. Smith. Mr. Ramsey did just this, however he explained personally that the class that he had observed was excellent. Upon questioning by Smith, subsequent to the bad report, he issued an updated report that was good.

14)Arbitrator Jack Tillem informed Smith’s former attorney David Kearney in front of Smith at the end of the Department of Education’s presentation of witnesses, before Mr. Smith had a chance to bring in his witnesses, that he had already made up his mind against Mr. Smith with a three to six month suspension. Smith sent a letter to the arbitrator at his office protesting this, explaining that the arbitrator was tilted, biased and partial by making such a statement before Smith even had a chance to call in his own witnesses.

15) A new Arbitrator, Howard Edelman, was assigned to Smith’s case in June of 2007. Mr. Smith’s new attorney William Gerard asked Mr. Edelman to hold another hearing because the previous record and hearing had obviously been biased and tainted. And, that in fairness the new arbitrator must hear the case himself to correctly substantiate the validity of testimony of the witnesses. This was a point in question that the Supreme Court Judge used, among others, to rule against arbitrator Edelman who without hearing any testimony ruled against Mr. Smith. The punishment was one year without pay and benefits and upholding the principal’s bogus “unsatisfactory” rating. This unsatisfactory rating, which would make it impossible to be again hired in the school system, was the only such in over ten years with tenured service for the New York City Department of Education.

16) Edelman ignored all the evidence and principal Uelhing’s own testimony that put her in gross violation of the United Federation of Teachers contract, putting the students in jeopardy with safety issues by ordering Mr. Smith to teach the oversized classes.

17) Smith wrote letters of complaint to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Chancellor Joel Klein, and his complaints were responded to by sending Mr. Smith to the Teachers Reassignment Center, notoriously known and vehemently written against about in the press, as “The Rubber Room,” located at 333 Seventh Avenue, 8th Floor, in New York City.

Read Investigating the Investigators (86 pages) and Findings and Recommendations of the Joint Commission and you will see how the system "works", even today. In fact, the corruption and fraud that you can read about in these documents are nothing compared with what is going on right now, in the hallways, offices, and closets of our public schools by administrators of the "new" Board of Education, nicknamed the "Department of Education" so that people are misled into thinking that Mayor Bloomberg legally changed the name. He didn't. We dont have any school board to complain to.

Teachers for the most part see and hear everything that goes on in a school building. Administrators who want to hide something try their best to harass those who work in their building so that no one tells anyone anything.

Teachers know that they are "mandated reporters" and must report what they see and hear, or they will be punished. The sad irony here is that teachers who report wrong-doing are punished, if the Principal has not been given a directive to do otherwise. The Online Occurrence Reporting System (OORS) is, after all, color-blind and doesn't know who's who in the "protected" category. That is why some teachers are removed immediately from their classrooms without cause (and may never know why) and some stay. Who stays and who goes really is not related to how "nice" the teacher is, or how good, or whether or not the kids love him/her. The decision is made randomly by a Principal and the "higher-ups", the people who read the OORS emails. Then the name is checked for political connections, potential whistleblower status, credentials, age, previous allegations, convictions, etc. Questions such as "How much salary is this teacher making?" "Does any politician want to give this person's job to someone?" become relevant. Tom Robbins of the Village Voice looked briefly at Regina Loughran, a Deputy at SCI, in 2005:

"Law and Disorder: Special Victims Unit
Investigators say the city's independent schools watchdog has often failed to bark

Tom Robbins, The Village Voice, December 06, 2005

Back in 1997 police arrested a man named Ronald Taylor, who worked as an assistant public school principal in Harlem. Taylor, 50 years old at the time, easily ranked as a parent's worst nightmare. His arrest came after the mother of a student walked into a local police precinct and reported that Taylor had lured her 15-year-old son to his apartment with an offer to play with his video game collection. He then proceeded to sexually molest him. When cops went to investigate they found Taylor had tricked up his West Harlem apartment as a kids' game room. They also found some 400 X-rated videos.

Unlike a score of school-personnel sex-abuse cases from that era, Taylor's arrest got little news play. The Times ran a short item on an inside page and the Daily News carried one as well, on page 79. The lack of attention was partly because the arrest did not emanate from the efficient publicity machine of Edward Stancik, the late special commissioner for investigation for city schools.
For 12 years until his death in 2002, Stancik's gaunt features were a staple on TV newscasts as he told of corrupt bureaucrats and twisted sex abusers nailed by his office. Such cases made Stancik wildly unpopular in the teachers' union offices and the old Board of Education headquarters on Livingston Street in Brooklyn, where he was viewed as a merciless inquisitor, a publicity hound whose investigations were measured mainly for their TV and news-ink potential.
On the other hand, many politicians, journalists, prosecutors, and parents adored him, viewing Stancik as a valiant warrior against an intractable bureaucracy. So what if he knew how to use the media? What better way to send a message to the public and bad guys alike that wrongdoing won't be tolerated? When Stancik died at age 47 of heart failure in March 2002, there were some misgivings expressed about his occasional overzealousness. But the editorial call was to make sure the watchdog office he'd led didn't lose its fangs.
But a few months after Stancik's death, something unusual in the world of law enforcement happened. A former top investigator in his office, an ex-detective who had been a supervisor there for five years, sat down and wrote two lengthy letters to city officials alleging that a top Stancik deputy named Regina Loughran had dropped the ball in several important cases, either delaying arrests or letting the bad guys get away altogether. In some instances, it was alleged, Loughran had changed cases from being "substantiated" to "unsubstantiated."
The complaints were investigated by city attorneys, and several were confirmed. Yet Loughran today remains as powerful as ever, serving as the $151,000 number two official in the special investigators' office. Former and current investigators, both men and women, who spoke under condition of anonymity, told the Voice they were puzzled by the inaction. "If we had caught someone in the education system behaving this way, they'd be long gone," said one former investigator.
Among the cases the investigators cited was that of Ronald Taylor.
According to the former detective and others familiar with the case, nearly a year before Taylor's arrest by police, investigators in Stancik's office had asked permission to launch a probe of the school official. The request was made after a prison social worker contacted the investigations office to say that an inmate was claiming to have been sexually abused by Taylor, his former teacher. Investigators initially dismissed the charge as one more prisoner trying to reduce his sentence. But the details of the story were disturbingly precise: Taylor had asked the student, then 15 years old, to carry a crate of milk up to his apartment. Once he got him inside, Taylor had sexually assaulted him. The inmate described the apartment in detail.
Investigators drove to upstate Green Haven Correctional Facility to interview the inmate, who convinced them that a sexual predator was loose in the schools. The statute of limitations had expired on the earlier assault, but the inmate said he was willing to wear a recording device to a meeting with Taylor to see if he could get him talking about other victims. The investigators relayed that offer to Loughran, then the attorney-in-charge of the child sexual-abuse unit and a key figure in the office. Loughran refused.
"The issue for her seemed to be, 'Why spend the time and money to get this kid out of jail and wire him up for a case that's too old,' " a former investigator told the Voice. "We argued that if we have this one person there are probably others out there at risk."
Loughran was adamant. But the investigators, most of them retired NYPD detectives who lived by chain of command, declined to appeal the decision over her head. The case was closed. Nine months later, the outraged mother of another victim filed her complaint with police. Taylor was immediately arrested and later sentenced to serve up to three years in prison. Under questioning, he said something that chilled both cops and school investigators. He said he was HIV-positive.
________________________________________
Ed Stancik's public posture was of a manager with a stern "the buck stops here" policy. But according to the former detective and others, the often ailing commissioner ceded wide authority to Loughran, a hardworking former sex-crimes prosecutor whose ability to turn out clearly written reports was highly prized by Stancik and his successor.
Investigators said Loughran was also often tempestuous, given to sudden rages and sulks. What made their jobs most difficult, however, was her apparent skittishness about dealing directly with outside prosecutors who were needed for any criminal referrals. "She just seemed intimidated or something," said one veteran ex-detective who worked in the office for years. "If we had a tape we needed to get to the D.A. she would have you drop it off with the officer in the lobby, rather than make a call to the prosecutor personally."
As a result, the investigators said, the case of the predatory assistant principal was just one of the instances in Stancik's old office where the system simply broke down.
There was the case of the art instructor accused of having displayed nude photos of himself to disabled students, confiding that "what a girl wants is a big dick." (The photos weren't found, and Loughran decided the students' testimony was "problematic," ordering investigators to change their findings from "substantiated" to "unfounded." When Board of Ed administrators asked for investigators to testify against the teacher to bar him from further employment, Loughran refused to allow it.)

There was the 48-year-old male teacher who admitted driving a 17-year-old female student to a funeral home parking lot in the Bronx and asking her, "What if I told you I wanted to go down on you?" (The teacher said he was trying to help her learn to fend off improper advances. The principal vouched for the teacher, and the girl later admitted she'd neglected to say they were also drinking beer at the time. Loughran said her testimony was inconsistent and ordered the case dropped.)
And there was Paul Kerner, a 61-year-old teacher at Sheepshead Bay High School who romanced an 11th-grade girl, taking her to Atlantic City casinos and a motel where he coerced her into performing fellatio and other sex acts. The investigator on the case urged Loughran to make a quick criminal referral to prosecutors, but the deputy balked. "I don't know what to do, let's hold off," she said, according to a report of the incident.
The office dithered so long that the victim called the investigator, complaining that Kerner was now stalking her, and asking why he hadn't been arrested yet. The investigator asked Loughran for permission to take the case to a friend at the FBI. Loughran expressed skepticism that the bureau would be interested, but reluctantly agreed. But when the FBI came seeking the backup documents for the case, Loughran balked again, forcing agents to get a grand jury subpoena. (Kerner was eventually convicted in federal court, where he received a 33-month sentence. Annoyed at the investigator who had called the bureau, Loughran allegedly had him transferred out of the sex-crimes unit.)
Yet another disturbing case posed an investigative challenge, one that Stancik's former detectives readily accepted, given the stakes, but which Loughran flat-out rejected. In that instance, a former city high school student, now a grown man and a member of the Army Reserves, called the office to say that his former principal had repeatedly sexually abused him a few years earlier. According to his story, he had been a fatherless youngster whom the principal had taken under his wing, bringing him on camping trips to Lake George and elsewhere where he had repeatedly molested him. On the advice of his therapist, the man had decided to confront and report his abuser. Once he did, the principal immediately resigned.
The Stancik investigators were able to get a consensually recorded telephone conversation in which the principal admitted his sexual abuse of the former student. Like the Ronald Taylor case, however, the acts were too old to prosecute. But investigators said the ex-principal (a Boy Scout troop leader who still lived with his mother) fit the profile of "a classic pedophile," and they believed he had to have preyed on others.
The next step, they proposed to Lough-ran, would be to wire up the ex-student and have him meet with the former principal to see if they could pick up leads on other victims. They would also talk to teachers and students at the principal's school to find out if other boys had been similarly "befriended." Loughran wouldn't hear of it. According to two former investigators, she said, "He is out of the system. Shut it down." (Loughran has denied using those words.)
In an effort to try to breathe new life into the case, one of the investigators reached out to a federal prosecutor he knew who was familiar with sex-crime statutes to ask if there was any other law the ex-principal might have violated. Loughran later said she was "upset" and "embarrassed" by the call, which she said duplicated her own research and had been made without her permission. Investigators said it was much more dramatic than that. "She was livid," said one of them. When the investigator was asked why the call had been made, he responded: "Because I'm trying to catch the son of a bitch."
________________________________________
According to the investigators, Lough-ran retaliated by shifting one of the two probers who had worked the case, considered one of the office's most productive teams, out of the sex unit. Loughran later insisted the assignment change had been made by Stancik, not her.
But it still wasn't over. The former principal, concerned at possible civil liabilities, offered to purchase a $250,000 house for the victim in exchange for a promise not to pursue further legal action. When Loughran learned of the offer, she allegedly said that the victim might be arrested for extortion, a suggestion that appalled the investigators. (As it happened, the deal fell through.)
"He had been a principal for 20 years, he had such power," said one of the investigators recently. "All he had to do was find another weak kid. We felt there had to be other victims. It was so egregious to shut it down. Pedophiles don't do it once and then go home. You don't have to be Columbo to figure that out."
________________________________________
The two letters detailing the complaints about the bungled past cases landed on the desk of city department of investigations commissioner Rose Gill Hearn in early 2003.
Hearn technically oversees the schools investigation unit (its offices are located in the same Maiden Lane building as DOI), but because of its sensitive mission it operates largely independently. Still, Hearn took the complaints seriously, assigning a pair of senior attorneys to look into them. Over the course of several months, the attorneys interviewed 10 current and former employees of Stancik's old special commissioner's office, including Loughran. During the interviews, the attorneys turned up another instance, in which a complaint about a Bronx teacher accused of sodomizing several young male students had been confirmed by the Stancik office but had somehow never been referred to prosecutors.
Those findings were in turn forwarded to Stancik's successor, Richard J. Condon, a former police commissioner who in the past headed investigative squads for the Manhattan and Queens district attorneys. When Condon took over in June 2002, he retained Loughran, bumping her up a notch to first deputy commissioner. A DOI spokesperson, Emily Gest, said the office hadn't ordered any changes or discipline for Loughran, but had "shared the facts and findings of its investigation, for Commissioner Condon to take any necessary remedial actions."
Condon said that he too took the complaints seriously, spending hours wading through old investigative files. "I was not a witness to this history," he said. "Most of these things happened years before I got here."
The standard he used in examining the cases, Condon said, was whether Loughran had had a "rational basis" for her decisions. In two instances—that of the art instructor who had shown the nude photos, and the teacher who had posed the obscene remarks to the student—Condon said he disagreed with Loughran's actions, but cautioned that even this conclusion was "probably unfair."
As for the failure to make a criminal referral in the Bronx sodomy case, Condon said the explanation was simple. "She screwed up. It happens." He noted that the office had handled a total of 1,800 cases during the period under review. Loughran also later told DOI's inquiry that she was "baffled" how she had failed to make the referral, but said if she was to blame so were her former bosses, Stancik and Robert Brenner, who served as Stancik's first deputy commissioner. (Brenner, now with the investigations firm Kroll Inc., did not return calls.)
At the end of the day, however, Condon said he chalked up the complaints to honest disagreements. "I am used to investigators and prosecutors arguing over whether cases should be prosecuted," he said.
Condon told the Daily News' Kathleen Lucadamo, who asked about the probe last month, that he considered Loughran "one of the straightest, most hardworking prosecutors I have ever worked with."
He told the Voice that he'd encountered none of the erratic behavior by Loughran described by the investigators. "I have been here three and a half years working next door to this woman and I have never seen the behavior these people describe," he said.
In a letter to DOI, however, Condon said he had changed office procedures to make sure he personally reads all complaints that come into the office and examines "every substantiated and unsubstantiated case."
Loughran, who declined to speak to the Voice, wrote Condon a lengthy defense of her actions, insisting that her decisions at the office had been "common-sense based and not capricious by any rational standard."
The investigators, past and current, remain unconvinced. "This isn't just disagreeing over cases," said one. "Yeah, there's always tension [in other investigative offices] between the investigators and the prosecutors. But it's always motivated by respect, and everyone understands they're a team. Here, you don't get that. And they're supposed to be about helping the kids."



I personally have brought documented proof of wrong-doing to SCI about the financial affairs at Stuyvesant High School (I was a parent member of the PA from 1999-2007), and then, in 2006, I received a telephone call from SCI Deputy Commissioner Thomas Fennell, who yelled, "SCI "would NEVER look into Stuyvesant High School's financial affairs, ever, and dont ever bring Stuyvesant back to this office."

So, when a teacher asks a question that should never be asked, such as "Where is Jane's IEP?", a Principal has to make a decision to end this teacher's career immediately or not, by reporting something into the OORS which goes to the Special Commissioner of Investigation. The person whose name is entered is now marked as 'trouble'.

How we got here is available in postings that I and others have made on this blog, my website (parentadvocates.org) and in various local newspapers. You will not find the information in the New York Times, the NY Daily News, the NY Post, Newsday, or any other newspaper owned, operated or aligned with either Rupert Murdoch or Mortimer Zuckerman.

Sunday, December 22, 2013

The Arrogance of Immunity and Fraud Behind Rose Gill Hearn, Richard Condon, SCI, OSI, and OEO

Since Ed Stancik's death in 2002, I believe, from my own research and from documents given to or found by me, that Richard Condon, Special Commissioner of Investigation,
has hoodwinked teachers, the UFT and even the DOE into thinking that he is an "independent" investigator.

Richard "Dick" Condon

I do not believe this is true.
 


In fact, Condon substantiates claims and allegations made by politically correct members
of the Department of Education and City Law Department in order to remove from the system whistleblowers and people who "know too much" about the corruption and fraud within the DOE. He gives the investigators the "right" to do whatever is necessary to get
the charge 'proven'.

Louis Scarcella
In the case of Christine Rubino, I spoke to the parent of several of the boys allegedly improperly touched by David Senatore, who told Christine's Principal about the facebook comment which got her fired at her 3020-a. After hearing from several sources - including the father of several of the boys involved -  about how Mr. Senatore took the boys home with him, had them swim in his pool, and how he would send them home with new underwear, I filed a complaint with SCI. Senatore called me up, trying to find one of the boys, and he said "I know you are a parent advocate, and I need you to help me find this boy because I miss him" after he, Senatore, was re-assigned. Soon thereafter, Investigator Jeffrey Anderson called and asked me who I had spoken to. Then he hung up.

SCI Investigator Jeffrey Anderson's business card

About a year later he called me on my home telephone number and left a message telling me that he had not substantiated the complaint against Senatore, and Senatore was back at the school. Key to the disturbing result here is that "Investigator" Anderson did not interview me, not ever. He did not interview me because he knew he had to NOT substantiate the complaint, and talking to me would force him into making a different conclusion.

 That's why I call this so-called right "the arrogance of immunity", because these thugs take advantage of their jobs and positions within the power hierarchy to do whatever they feel is
necessary to be successful, i.e. to "prove" a charge - or not - depending upon the "advice" of their Superiors. Take Louis N. Scarcella, for example. His work in validating crimes involved, reports say, getting witnesses to lie in order to convict. Scarcella worked for the DOE on cases as well.

City Law Department's Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo

When Carmen Farina would not tell anyone where the $225,000 Annenberg Challenge For
The Arts' grant money was, P.S. 6 parent and Corporation Counsel Attorney Jane Gordon
helped Carmen throw the Arts Together Community Partnership into the garbage and shielded Carmen from any questions. Jane Gordon, PTA President, was subsequently removed from that position by the PS PTA Executive Board. Jane then joined me as a parent at Stuyvesant High
School, and led the defamation against the Chinese parents, especially Mary Lok, in order to hide
the theft of money by the PTA Executive Board. Jane was assisted in this effort by none other
than Gwen Hopkins, who often threatened me and tried to squash me and my voice at PS 6,
Booker T. Washington MS 54, and Stuyvesant High School. Obviously she was not successful silencing me. Gwen is very good at giving seminars on Title 1 funds and other parent programs, while she hides the corruption and fraud of principals who take the money and use it for their own purposes.

Gwen Hopkins was formerly the Director of the Family Engagement Office at 49-51 Chambers Street, 5th floor, where, as luck would have it, one of my friends worked. My friend told me what Gwen told her colleagues about me (Gwen, you should be more careful of talking badly about
parents you are supposed to be 'helping' in front of people you work with!!!). When I saw my
friend in the elevator or in the lobby, we never showed that we knew each other.

My conclusion comes from documenting for 10 years the compulsory arbitration known
as 3020-a or "teacher trials" and seeing false claims validated by employees of the DOE,
children and parents. I have done a lot of work on finding out why people lie under oath
at 3020-a, and the motive is usually to get something in return: DOE employees get to keep
their jobs (temporarily), parents can get a better grade for their children, and students can
graduate, have their records cleaned up, etc. These deals are made all the time in the back
rooms of 49-51 Chambers Street and 100 Church Street, home office of the Corporation Counsel Michael Cardozo and the New York City Law Department.

Betsy Combier



SUNDAY, JANUARY 18, 2009


Investigating the Investigators and the Gill Commission Final Report



For many years I have looked for the two investigative reports published in March and April 1990 on the corruption inside New York City public schools, aided by the incompetency of the Inspector General Michael P. Sofarelli.



On January 12, 2009, I decided to stop in the Municipal Library (see picture above)at 31 Chambers Street (corner of Centre and Chambers, directly accross the street from the Manhattan Courts and inside the building of the Manhattan Surrogate Court)and see if I could copy the two books that have not, to my knowledge, been posted online: 
"Investigating the Investigators: A Report on the Office of the Inspector General of the New York City Board of Education"; and, "Findings and Recommendations Of The Joint Commission On The Integrity In the Public Schools". I was given the approval to copy both reports, and I have made both available in this article on my website:

Two Reports, "Investigating The Investigators", and 'The Gill Commission Report' (1990) Dont Improve New York City Public Schools

These two reports are eye-openers for new parents and teachers and NYC BOE employees, but to old-timers in the system, the names of the people in these reports are well-known. No one who works for the "system" is ever gone for long. A report on the sex crimes of Jerry Olshaker and the cover-up by Howard Tames in the NYC BOE Personnel office is worth reading. And look at Bruce Irushalmi.

James Gill, the father of NYC Commissioner of the Department of Investigation (Rose Gill Hearn, at right), was appointed chair of the Joint Commission On Integrity in the Public Schools in 1989. He was a superb investigator, and produced the two best reports on public corruption that I have ever read. He recommended the removal of Michael P. Sofarelli, the Inspector General of the NYC Board of Education (who, after leaving the NYC BOE, Eliot Spitzer hired to investigate Medicaid fraud. He retired in 2003, and in 2005 Pataki started a new effort to rein in the Medicaid mess).


Ed Stancik (pictured at right) was the first Special Commissioner of Investigation, and he was ruthless in his independence from anyone. (See the report on former District 29 Superintendent Celeste Miller). 

Both Rose Gill Hearn and Mayor Bloomberg didn't like this, so in 2002, after Mr. Stancik's death, Mayor Bloomberg changed Executive Order 11 which created the position of Special Commissioner to EXECUTIVE ORDER NO. 15, which allowed a person who was NOT an Attorney to have the job. Newspapers were told to write abouthow Ed purged schools unnecessarily, and created a 'witch hunt'...but Richard Condon, his successor, has created something much worse, and is commended.


(From left to right) Special Commissioner of Investigation Edward Stancik, District Attorney Richard Brown, and Schools Chancellor Harold Levy announced the indictments of six individuals in what has been called "the fleecing of District 29. 

Rose Gill Hearn then appointed her dad's friend Richard Condon. Both Mayor Bloomberg and Rose Gill Hearn made it clear that the investigators had to be under their control. SCI is, therefore, an agency that is not independent of the NYC BOE, despite statements from the investigators and Mr. Condon that they are not controlled by Joel Klein.



Indeed, the website of the Special Commissioner gives misinformation to those who would whistleblow their school or anyone who works there, by stating:
"Whether you work in the system, are a parent, a taxpayer, or a concerned individual, if you suspect wrongdoing at your local public school or elsewhere within the New York City Department of Education, contact us. Your identity can be kept confidential and City employees are protected against retaliation in the workplace."

This statement traps many. Ask yourself this question: "If I say something about the wrong-doing, and there is retaliation against me, what options to I have to remedy this situation, if I am fired, re-assigned, harmed, or my family is harmed?"
Answer: "If you do not have a $trillion dollars or a friend in the Governor's office, your options to fight the retaliation that will be forthcoming are few. Find a national reporter who will expose your school, instead".

As I have written in an earlier post, "News To Use", if you go to the City's Payrolls and type in Richard Condon's name, you weill find that he is paid by the "Department of Education, Administration", the same budget line that pays for Joel Klein and the Parent Coordinators, for starters. I spoke with an employee of DOI at 80 Maiden Lane, and he told me that everyone who works there is very angry that they are not allowed on the floor that Richard Condon's office is located on. See also my previous post, "Workplace Investigations: NYC Employees are in Danger" 

We now know the kind of work that Richard Condon takes pride in:

New York City Teacher Theodore "Teddy" Smith and the Perfect Storm of Injustice


Theodore "Teddy" Smith Wins His NY State Supreme Court Appeal To Overturn Arbitrator Howard Edelman's 3020a Decision and Award
by Betsy Combier, Editor, Parentadvocates.org
LINK

New York State Supreme Court Judge Alice Schlesinger throws out arbitrator Howard Edelman's decision to punish excellent teacher Teddy Smith because, she writes, "Mr. Smith is challenging the decision and penalty…of the disciplinary process and finally and most importantly the performance of the second Arbitrator who decided the controversy based solely on the transcript of the proceedings before the first Arbitrator, thereby violating his due process right to a fair and impartial hearing...…It is fundamental to the fact finding process to be present when testimony is given, testimony which constitutes the evidence upon which the determination will be made...When an individual is denied fundamental due process, an argument that substantial evidence supports the decision is irrelevant." 

NYC public school teacher Teddy Smith has fought City Hall since 2004 and has won a small but precedent-setting battle against Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Joel Klein, Richard Condon, and New York media who blindly follow the directives of the Special Commissioner and publish false information in order to "get" someone. Anyone. It could be you next time. Teddy refused to give up clearing his name and preserving his future. We salute him.

Theodore (Teddy) Smith was born and raised in Suffern, New York and graduated from Hampshire College with a BA degree, Goddard College with an MA, attended Sarah Lawrence as a special student, and has a BS degree from Empire State College, an obtained certification as a School Administrator from Fordham University. He has lived in New York City for over fifteen years.

He currently works as a account manager and on-air personality working afternoon drive for Central Broadcasting in Worchester County, Massachusetts; on-air personality for WGHT in North Jersey; WTBQ AM/FM in Orange County, NY, and WPAT Multi-cultural Broadcasting in New York. He has also worked full-time in New York City for the Department of Education as a physical education and health teacher, currently with a Supervisory Administrator’s License (SAS), with “satisfactory” service for over ten years, with tenure in 1999. Concurrently, Mr. Smith taught part-time for the United Nations After-school Program as a physical education and martial arts teacher for thirteen years.

Teddy was harassed into teaching a part-time gym class with more than 65 children (often almost 100 at one time) at The Museum School on West 17th street in Manhattan. He also has a heart condition for which he asked his Principal (Lindley Uehling) to be accommodated – although he was and is able to perform his job - but was turned down and his needs were ignored. 

Timeline

1)On April 30, 2008, Teddy Smith won a decision from the Supreme Court of the State of New York regarding the attached matter against The New York City Department of Education. Entire file, documents and exhibits are filed at New York Sate Supreme Court, New York County, 60 Centre Street, New York, Index #117051/07. Attorney: Mr. William A. Gerard.

2)Richard Condon, Special Commissioner of Investigation, Gerald P. Conroy, Deputy Commissioner of Investigation and Michael Humphries, Investigator for The New York City Department of Education released a false and fraudulent report regarding Theodore Smith with respect to this same matter and arbitration.

3)First arbitrator, Jack Tillem, colluded and grievously misled the hearing and record by having off-the-record, ex parte conversations with Smith’s former attorney David Kearney of the Law Offices of Neal Brickman in New York, Teresa Europe, Deputy Counsel to the Chancellor of the Department of Education, and Susan Jalowski, Attorney for the Department of the Education. These off-the-record conversations were also held on cell phones at the point of decision and documented in the legal transcripts for the arbitration as well as in the Supreme Court decision reversing a second arbitrator’s, Howard Edelman, decision.

4)The New York Daily News and The Chief newspapers of New York City released falsified, inaccurate and unsubstantiated stories based upon a bogus report supplied by the New York City Department of Education in conjunction with an investigation led by the special commissioner, Richard Condon. The story in the Daily News was written by Carrie Melago. Carrie Melago stated that Mr. Smith made an alleged death threat to the arbitrator Jack Tillem. Jack Tillem never said that Mr. Smith had made a death threat against him. It was Smith’s former attorney David Kearney who falsely told Jack Tillem and the Department of Education attorneys in an off-the-record phone conversation, that Smith had made the alleged threat. Carrie Melago never interviewed Mr. Smith or his present attorney before having the story sent to press. In an email sent to Teddy Smith, Melago stated that she would write a follow-up story when he was vindicated. Smith was never found guilty. Richard Steier from The Chief also wrote a false and misleading story concerning Smith. He wrote that Teddy Smith allegedly threatened to kill the arbitrator, without interviewing Mr. Smith.

5)Lindley Uehling, former principal of the New York City Museum School in Manhattan and now in the Admissions Department of Hunter College High School in Manhattan has testified that Mr. Smith had oversized physical education classes of over 100 students, 75 students and other oversize classes while alone in the gym for months without any help from assistants. Uehling said that this was part of Mr. Smith’s job in documented testimony. Meanwhile, Ms. Uehling was violating the teacher’s contract by not informing the chancellor or teacher in writing that she was overseeing physical education classes in excess of 50 students.

6)Assistants that were assigned to Smith’s oversized classes three months after the school year also often did not report to the classes leaving Mr Smith alone with the oversized classes. Also, some of these assistants that were assigned to these classes were not state certified and were not certified in physical education. Uehling testified that for the first three months of the physical education program there was no gym to hold classes because there was a leak in the ceiling. The physical education classes that Mr. Smith was hired to teach was always considered a part-time program. This was considered an illegal program. In order to justify hiring Mr. Smith fulltime the principal inflated the class periods. Smith had a program where he taught 17 to 18 period per week. Former principal Uehling made the physical education program add up to 25 teaching periods per week by making Smith teach a class alone with over 100 students in the class for close to one year. By teacher’s contract, Smith was required to teach the entire school physical education and health classes at least three times per week. Uehling had him scheduled for only once per week for only one to two periods. 

7)Smith and his council asked the arbitrator during his hearing in 2007 in to see the budget during the calendar year 2004-2005 to point out what must be discrepancies when he was teaching under such objectionable and illegal circumstances. They were denied access to the budget in any way by the arbitrator Jack Tillem during the hearing.

8)Teddy filed a Federal law suit against the City of New York Department of Education and individuals asserting disability retaliation, discrimination, retaliation, age discrimination, and slander.

9)Arbitrator Jack Tillem asked Smith’s former attorney David Kearney to bring a check with him for $1,600 to a hearing because Smith was sick the night before the hearing with a doctor’s note. The arbitrator had an ex parte conversation with former attorney David Kearney regarding Smith bringing the check for $1,600. This conversation was never placed in the record. 

10)Principal Linda Uehling changed Smith’s grade in June, 2005. Class lists with the true amount of students in his classes were falsified.

11)Ted Smith was denied peer intervention which he requested in writing.

12)A report by the Department of Education confirms that during the 2004-2005 school year when Ted Smith was teaching 15 out of 21 left the school that year. The report shows that the school was in total chaos throughout that year.

13)An e-mail dated January, 2005 was sent from Department of Education Fay Pallen on her Blackberry device that was supposedly supposed to be sent to former principal Lindley Uehling. This e-mail was sent to Mr. Smith by mistake. The nature of this e-mail is entirely about the subject of how to simply get rid of Ted Smith by finding reasons giving him 2 unsatisfactory yearly ratings. Also, to get Victor Ramsey the former Director of Physical Education Region 9 in Manhattan, to write a negative evaluation about Mr. Smith. Mr. Ramsey did just this, however he explained personally that the class that he had observed was excellent. Upon questioning by Smith, subsequent to the bad report, he issued an updated report that was good.

14)Arbitrator Jack Tillem informed Smith’s former attorney David Kearney in front of Smith at the end of the Department of Education’s presentation of witnesses, before Mr. Smith had a chance to bring in his witnesses, that he had already made up his mind against Mr. Smith with a three to six month suspension. Smith sent a letter to the arbitrator at his office protesting this, explaining that the arbitrator was tilted, biased and partial by making such a statement before Smith even had a chance to call in his own witnesses.

15) A new Arbitrator, Howard Edelman, was assigned to Smith’s case in June of 2007. Mr. Smith’s new attorney William Gerard asked Mr. Edelman to hold another hearing because the previous record and hearing had obviously been biased and tainted. And, that in fairness the new arbitrator must hear the case himself to correctly substantiate the validity of testimony of the witnesses. This was a point in question that the Supreme Court Judge used, among others, to rule against arbitrator Edelman who without hearing any testimony ruled against Mr. Smith. The punishment was one year without pay and benefits and upholding the principal’s bogus “unsatisfactory” rating. This unsatisfactory rating, which would make it impossible to be again hired in the school system, was the only such in over ten years with tenured service for the New York City Department of Education.

16) Edelman ignored all the evidence and principal Uelhing’s own testimony that put her in gross violation of the United Federation of Teachers contract, putting the students in jeopardy with safety issues by ordering Mr. Smith to teach the oversized classes.

17) Smith wrote letters of complaint to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Chancellor Joel Klein, and his complaints were responded to by sending Mr. Smith to the Teachers Reassignment Center, notoriously known and vehemently written against about in the press, as “The Rubber Room,” located at 333 Seventh Avenue, 8th Floor, in New York City.

Read Investigating the Investigators (86 pages) and Findings and Recommendations of the Joint Commission and you will see how the system "works", even today. In fact, the corruption and fraud that you can read about in these documents are nothing compared with what is going on right now, in the hallways, offices, and closets of our public schools by administrators of the "new" Board of Education, nicknamed the "Department of Education" so that people are misled into thinking that Mayor Bloomberg legally changed the name. He didn't. We dont have any school board to complain to. 

Teachers for the most part see and hear everything that goes on in a school building. Administrators who want to hide something try their best to harass those who work in their building so that no one tells anyone anything. 

Teachers know that they are "mandated reporters" and must report what they see and hear, or they will be punished. The sad irony here is that teachers who report wrong-doing are punished, if the Principal has not been given a directive to do otherwise. The Online Occurrence Reporting System(OORS) is, after all, color-blind and doesn't know who's who in the "protected" category. That is why some teachers are removed immediately from their classrooms without cause (and may never know why) and some stay. Who stays and who goes really is not related to how "nice" the teacher is, or how good, or whether or not the kids love him/her. The decision is made randomly by a Principal and the "higher-ups", the people who read the OORS emails. Then the name is checked for political connections, potential whistleblower status, credentials, age, previous allegations, convictions, etc. Questions such as "How much salary is this teacher making?" "Does any politician want to give this person's job to someone?" become relevant. Tom Robbins of the Village Voice looked briefly at Regina Loughran, a Deputy at SCI, in 2005:

"Law and Disorder: Special Victims Unit
Investigators say the city's independent schools watchdog has often failed to bark

Tom Robbins, The Village Voice, December 06, 2005

Back in 1997 police arrested a man named Ronald Taylor, who worked as an assistant public school principal in Harlem. Taylor, 50 years old at the time, easily ranked as a parent's worst nightmare. His arrest came after the mother of a student walked into a local police precinct and reported that Taylor had lured her 15-year-old son to his apartment with an offer to play with his video game collection. He then proceeded to sexually molest him. When cops went to investigate they found Taylor had tricked up his West Harlem apartment as a kids' game room. They also found some 400 X-rated videos. 

Unlike a score of school-personnel sex-abuse cases from that era, Taylor's arrest got little news play. The Times ran a short item on an inside page and the Daily News carried one as well, on page 79. The lack of attention was partly because the arrest did not emanate from the efficient publicity machine of Edward Stancik, the late special commissioner for investigation for city schools. 
For 12 years until his death in 2002, Stancik's gaunt features were a staple on TV newscasts as he told of corrupt bureaucrats and twisted sex abusers nailed by his office. Such cases made Stancik wildly unpopular in the teachers' union offices and the old Board of Education headquarters on Livingston Street in Brooklyn, where he was viewed as a merciless inquisitor, a publicity hound whose investigations were measured mainly for their TV and news-ink potential. 
On the other hand, many politicians, journalists, prosecutors, and parents adored him, viewing Stancik as a valiant warrior against an intractable bureaucracy. So what if he knew how to use the media? What better way to send a message to the public and bad guys alike that wrongdoing won't be tolerated? When Stancik died at age 47 of heart failure in March 2002, there were some misgivings expressed about his occasional overzealousness. But the editorial call was to make sure the watchdog office he'd led didn't lose its fangs. 
But a few months after Stancik's death, something unusual in the world of law enforcement happened. A former top investigator in his office, an ex-detective who had been a supervisor there for five years, sat down and wrote two lengthy letters to city officials alleging that a top Stancik deputy named Regina Loughran had dropped the ball in several important cases, either delaying arrests or letting the bad guys get away altogether. In some instances, it was alleged, Loughran had changed cases from being "substantiated" to "unsubstantiated." 
The complaints were investigated by city attorneys, and several were confirmed. Yet Loughran today remains as powerful as ever, serving as the $151,000 number two official in the special investigators' office. Former and current investigators, both men and women, who spoke under condition of anonymity, told the Voice they were puzzled by the inaction. "If we had caught someone in the education system behaving this way, they'd be long gone," said one former investigator. 
Among the cases the investigators cited was that of Ronald Taylor. 
According to the former detective and others familiar with the case, nearly a year before Taylor's arrest by police, investigators in Stancik's office had asked permission to launch a probe of the school official. The request was made after a prison social worker contacted the investigations office to say that an inmate was claiming to have been sexually abused by Taylor, his former teacher. Investigators initially dismissed the charge as one more prisoner trying to reduce his sentence. But the details of the story were disturbingly precise: Taylor had asked the student, then 15 years old, to carry a crate of milk up to his apartment. Once he got him inside, Taylor had sexually assaulted him. The inmate described the apartment in detail. 
Investigators drove to upstate Green Haven Correctional Facility to interview the inmate, who convinced them that a sexual predator was loose in the schools. The statute of limitations had expired on the earlier assault, but the inmate said he was willing to wear a recording device to a meeting with Taylor to see if he could get him talking about other victims. The investigators relayed that offer to Loughran, then the attorney-in-charge of the child sexual-abuse unit and a key figure in the office. Loughran refused. 
"The issue for her seemed to be, 'Why spend the time and money to get this kid out of jail and wire him up for a case that's too old,' " a former investigator told the Voice. "We argued that if we have this one person there are probably others out there at risk." 
Loughran was adamant. But the investigators, most of them retired NYPD detectives who lived by chain of command, declined to appeal the decision over her head. The case was closed. Nine months later, the outraged mother of another victim filed her complaint with police. Taylor was immediately arrested and later sentenced to serve up to three years in prison. Under questioning, he said something that chilled both cops and school investigators. He said he was HIV-positive. 
________________________________________
Ed Stancik's public posture was of a manager with a stern "the buck stops here" policy. But according to the former detective and others, the often ailing commissioner ceded wide authority to Loughran, a hardworking former sex-crimes prosecutor whose ability to turn out clearly written reports was highly prized by Stancik and his successor. 
Investigators said Loughran was also often tempestuous, given to sudden rages and sulks. What made their jobs most difficult, however, was her apparent skittishness about dealing directly with outside prosecutors who were needed for any criminal referrals. "She just seemed intimidated or something," said one veteran ex-detective who worked in the office for years. "If we had a tape we needed to get to the D.A. she would have you drop it off with the officer in the lobby, rather than make a call to the prosecutor personally." 
As a result, the investigators said, the case of the predatory assistant principal was just one of the instances in Stancik's old office where the system simply broke down. 
There was the case of the art instructor accused of having displayed nude photos of himself to disabled students, confiding that "what a girl wants is a big dick." (The photos weren't found, and Loughran decided the students' testimony was "problematic," ordering investigators to change their findings from "substantiated" to "unfounded." When Board of Ed administrators asked for investigators to testify against the teacher to bar him from further employment, Loughran refused to allow it.) 

There was the 48-year-old male teacher who admitted driving a 17-year-old female student to a funeral home parking lot in the Bronx and asking her, "What if I told you I wanted to go down on you?" (The teacher said he was trying to help her learn to fend off improper advances. The principal vouched for the teacher, and the girl later admitted she'd neglected to say they were also drinking beer at the time. Loughran said her testimony was inconsistent and ordered the case dropped.) 
And there was Paul Kerner, a 61-year-old teacher at Sheepshead Bay High School who romanced an 11th-grade girl, taking her to Atlantic City casinos and a motel where he coerced her into performing fellatio and other sex acts. The investigator on the case urged Loughran to make a quick criminal referral to prosecutors, but the deputy balked. "I don't know what to do, let's hold off," she said, according to a report of the incident. 
The office dithered so long that the victim called the investigator, complaining that Kerner was now stalking her, and asking why he hadn't been arrested yet. The investigator asked Loughran for permission to take the case to a friend at the FBI. Loughran expressed skepticism that the bureau would be interested, but reluctantly agreed. But when the FBI came seeking the backup documents for the case, Loughran balked again, forcing agents to get a grand jury subpoena. (Kerner was eventually convicted in federal court, where he received a 33-month sentence. Annoyed at the investigator who had called the bureau, Loughran allegedly had him transferred out of the sex-crimes unit.) 
Yet another disturbing case posed an investigative challenge, one that Stancik's former detectives readily accepted, given the stakes, but which Loughran flat-out rejected. In that instance, a former city high school student, now a grown man and a member of the Army Reserves, called the office to say that his former principal had repeatedly sexually abused him a few years earlier. According to his story, he had been a fatherless youngster whom the principal had taken under his wing, bringing him on camping trips to Lake George and elsewhere where he had repeatedly molested him. On the advice of his therapist, the man had decided to confront and report his abuser. Once he did, the principal immediately resigned. 
The Stancik investigators were able to get a consensually recorded telephone conversation in which the principal admitted his sexual abuse of the former student. Like the Ronald Taylor case, however, the acts were too old to prosecute. But investigators said the ex-principal (a Boy Scout troop leader who still lived with his mother) fit the profile of "a classic pedophile," and they believed he had to have preyed on others. 
The next step, they proposed to Lough-ran, would be to wire up the ex-student and have him meet with the former principal to see if they could pick up leads on other victims. They would also talk to teachers and students at the principal's school to find out if other boys had been similarly "befriended." Loughran wouldn't hear of it. According to two former investigators, she said, "He is out of the system. Shut it down." (Loughran has denied using those words.) 
In an effort to try to breathe new life into the case, one of the investigators reached out to a federal prosecutor he knew who was familiar with sex-crime statutes to ask if there was any other law the ex-principal might have violated. Loughran later said she was "upset" and "embarrassed" by the call, which she said duplicated her own research and had been made without her permission. Investigators said it was much more dramatic than that. "She was livid," said one of them. When the investigator was asked why the call had been made, he responded: "Because I'm trying to catch the son of a bitch." 
________________________________________
According to the investigators, Lough-ran retaliated by shifting one of the two probers who had worked the case, considered one of the office's most productive teams, out of the sex unit. Loughran later insisted the assignment change had been made by Stancik, not her. 
But it still wasn't over. The former principal, concerned at possible civil liabilities, offered to purchase a $250,000 house for the victim in exchange for a promise not to pursue further legal action. When Loughran learned of the offer, she allegedly said that the victim might be arrested for extortion, a suggestion that appalled the investigators. (As it happened, the deal fell through.) 
"He had been a principal for 20 years, he had such power," said one of the investigators recently. "All he had to do was find another weak kid. We felt there had to be other victims. It was so egregious to shut it down. Pedophiles don't do it once and then go home. You don't have to be Columbo to figure that out." 
________________________________________
The two letters detailing the complaints about the bungled past cases landed on the desk of city department of investigations commissioner Rose Gill Hearn in early 2003. 
Hearn technically oversees the schools investigation unit (its offices are located in the same Maiden Lane building as DOI), but because of its sensitive mission it operates largely independently. Still, Hearn took the complaints seriously, assigning a pair of senior attorneys to look into them. Over the course of several months, the attorneys interviewed 10 current and former employees of Stancik's old special commissioner's office, including Loughran. During the interviews, the attorneys turned up another instance, in which a complaint about a Bronx teacher accused of sodomizing several young male students had been confirmed by the Stancik office but had somehow never been referred to prosecutors. 
Those findings were in turn forwarded to Stancik's successor, Richard J. Condon, a former police commissioner who in the past headed investigative squads for the Manhattan and Queens district attorneys. When Condon took over in June 2002, he retained Loughran, bumping her up a notch to first deputy commissioner. A DOI spokesperson, Emily Gest, said the office hadn't ordered any changes or discipline for Loughran, but had "shared the facts and findings of its investigation, for Commissioner Condon to take any necessary remedial actions." 
Condon said that he too took the complaints seriously, spending hours wading through old investigative files. "I was not a witness to this history," he said. "Most of these things happened years before I got here." 
The standard he used in examining the cases, Condon said, was whether Loughran had had a "rational basis" for her decisions. In two instances—that of the art instructor who had shown the nude photos, and the teacher who had posed the obscene remarks to the student—Condon said he disagreed with Loughran's actions, but cautioned that even this conclusion was "probably unfair." 
As for the failure to make a criminal referral in the Bronx sodomy case, Condon said the explanation was simple. "She screwed up. It happens." He noted that the office had handled a total of 1,800 cases during the period under review. Loughran also later told DOI's inquiry that she was "baffled" how she had failed to make the referral, but said if she was to blame so were her former bosses, Stancik and Robert Brenner, who served as Stancik's first deputy commissioner. (Brenner, now with the investigations firm Kroll Inc., did not return calls.) 
At the end of the day, however, Condon said he chalked up the complaints to honest disagreements. "I am used to investigators and prosecutors arguing over whether cases should be prosecuted," he said. 
Condon told the Daily News' Kathleen Lucadamo, who asked about the probe last month, that he considered Loughran "one of the straightest, most hardworking prosecutors I have ever worked with." 
He told the Voice that he'd encountered none of the erratic behavior by Loughran described by the investigators. "I have been here three and a half years working next door to this woman and I have never seen the behavior these people describe," he said. 
In a letter to DOI, however, Condon said he had changed office procedures to make sure he personally reads all complaints that come into the office and examines "every substantiated and unsubstantiated case." 
Loughran, who declined to speak to the Voice, wrote Condon a lengthy defense of her actions, insisting that her decisions at the office had been "common-sense based and not capricious by any rational standard." 
The investigators, past and current, remain unconvinced. "This isn't just disagreeing over cases," said one. "Yeah, there's always tension [in other investigative offices] between the investigators and the prosecutors. But it's always motivated by respect, and everyone understands they're a team. Here, you don't get that. And they're supposed to be about helping the kids."



I personally have brought documented proof of wrong-doing to SCI about the financial affairs at Stuyvesant High School (I was a parent member of the PA from 1999-2007), and then, in 2006, I received a telephone call from SCI Deputy Commissioner Thomas Fennell, who yelled, "SCI "would NEVER look into Stuyvesant High School's financial affairs, ever, and dont ever bring Stuyvesant back to this office."

So, when a teacher asks a question that should never be asked, such as "Where is Jane's IEP?", a Principal has to make a decision to end this teacher's career immediately or not, by reporting something into the OORS which goes to the Special Commissioner of Investigation. The person whose name is entered is now marked as 'trouble'.

How we got here is available in postings that I and others have made on this blog, my website (parentadvocates.org) and in various local newspapers. You will not find the information in the New York Times, the NY Daily News, the NY Post, Newsday, or any other newspaper owned, operated or aligned with either Rupert Murdoch or Mortimer Zuckerman.