Roslyn money probe swells to $7.8 million

Suspicious payments compiled by former auditor include hotels, cars, gourmet food and even dry-cleaning

By Karla Schuster and Eden Laikin | Staff Writers

June 8, 2004

An exterior view of Andre & Arlette dry cleaners, 1560 Third Avenue in Manhattan. (Newsday/ Audrey C. Tiernan / June 7, 2004)

From cars and computers to dry-cleaning and groceries - no personal expense was too big, or too small, to be charged to the Roslyn public schools, according to records obtained by Newsday and sources close to the investigation into embezzlement by school officials.

A list of $7.8 million worth of suspicious transactions compiled by Roslyn's former auditor identifies payments that include $33,141 to a dry cleaner used by former Superintendent Frank Tassone, $30,605 to a gourmet market in Oyster Bay not far from where former chief financial officer Pamela Gluckin once lived, $187,377 to car dealerships and financing companies and $551,569 to four companies owned by Gluckin or her husband, Harvey.

Gluckin has been charged with embezzling more than $1 million from the district, and prosecutors say the investigation could lead to her family members, or other school officials, being charged. Tassone has been suspended with pay while the district investigates whether he is also involved.

School officials have said they are still investigating how much of the spending on the $7.8 million list represents misappropriated funds, and if any of the expenses are legitimate.

The items on the list are expenses for which there are no bills or other backup materials that were paid during Gluckin's tenure with the district between 1990 and 2002. Some were single payments, others made in a few installments or every month, sources said.

School board President William Costigan said the board did not know about any of the payments on the list until "very recently," when the tally was submitted to the board and the Nassau County district attorney's office by Roslyn's former auditor, Miller, Lilly & Pearce.

"All of the items on that list and anything else we've come across in our own internal investigation has been turned over to the DA's office," Costigan said.

The list also shows more than $5 million in payments to legitimate Roslyn vendors, such as Nassau BOCES and various textbook and educational supply companies, that sources have said may be bogus entries designed to conceal where the money really went.

For example, the sources said that investigators and school officials believe that more than $320,000 worth of payments to a vendor called "Wells Fargo" - which is the name of a security company once used by Roslyn - were actually payments to Wells Fargo Bank, where Gluckin had a mortgage on one of her homes.

And Kenny Rivera, president of ProTech Computer Systems in Glen Cove, said yesterday that the company was paid a total of $20,110 for work it did in 2002 installing, upgrading and providing training for a new proprietary software system in the district's information technology department.

But the list of suspicious expenditures shows Roslyn paid the company more than three times that amount - $63,956.10.

"According to my records," Rivera said yesterday, "I can account for maybe a third of the total expenditures [on the list]."

Also, an entry called "M&T" is believed to represent the bank Manufacturer's and Traders Trust Co., sources said, which the list indicates was paid a total of $56,881.96. Records show that Gluckin took out a $400,000 mortgage on her waterfront Bellmore home in 2001 with that bank.

Gluckin's attorney, Victor Mevorah of Garden City, did not return a call seeking comment yesterday.

Tassone gets a car allowance, and his contract says he can be reimbursed for expenses "necessary and proper to the discharge of his duties."

The dry cleaning charges "were never approved by the board," Costigan said, "and I'm confident if they had been brought before us they would not have been." Tassone could not be reached for comment yesterday, but the manager of the Manhattan dry cleaning shop, Andre & Arlette, said he has been a customer for more than 10 years. The shop is around the corner from Tassone's Upper East Side apartment.

"He's been with us for a very, very long time," said the manager, Jean Khim, adding that Tassone has an account that is paid monthly.

There is also a $5,000 payment to the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas, and a half-dozen different entries on the list that appear to represent vehicle purchases.

School officials have confirmed that the district purchased at least two Jeeps, without school board approval, from a Wantagh dealership that once employed Harvey Gluckin as a salesman. Those Jeeps were given to two district supervisors for personal and business use, officials have said.

Linda Cole, an office manager at Ryan Chrysler Jeep, declined to say when or how long Harvey Gluckin had worked there because investigators from the district attorney's office had contacted them regarding the Jeep purchases.