On April 27, 2009 a check from the City of Hartford in the amount of $500.00 was issued to the Coolest Cow Bakery on New Britain Avenue in Hartford. That part is a fact. Another fact is that the owners of the Coolest Cow Bakery are Epifanio and Yessica Perez. Epifanio Perez is also the PTO President at the Batchelder School, located a few blocks east of the Coolest Cow Bakery, also on New Britain Avenue. From this point on the facts differ, depending on who you believe.
Sometime after April 27, 2009 Yessica Perez received a check for $500.00 made out to the Coolest Cow Bakery from the City of Hartford. Since they had not done any work for the City or provided any services, the Perez's were "in dismay" of the payment. Apparently there was tension at Batchelder Scool between the new Principal, James Pappas and the staff and parents. Norma Castro, a staff member at the school, at the urging of Pappas, asked the Perez's to fill out paperwork so that the Coolest Cow Bakery could become a vendor for the school. Perez apparently perceived a potential conflict of interest in being a vendor and PTO Prsident at the same school. Surprisingly, Principal Pappas, in his written statement,also had thoughts that he "was not 100% sure it would be the right thing to do" to offer money to the Coolest Cow Bakery. When Epifanio was originally asked if he would accept the check and was told it was on the way already, Epifanio told Norma Castro "I did not want any money for what we have given the school". Epi Perez further stated "the check for $500.00 just appeared made out to us". Barbara deJesus, the school secretary, according to Epifanio "kept calling us to cash the check" and they told her they "were concerned about the legality of us receiving the check" And here is the clincher according to Epifanio Perez. On April 16th, Epifanio stated that he was in Batchelder School and was approached by Principal Pappas. He claims that Pappas asked him to help "because the parents are against him (Pappas)". Epifanio states that Pappas said "I had to help him.Remember I gave you $500.00 for your business". Epifanio, in his written statement says " I told him I never asked for any money and I did not want any money. I felt he was trying to bribe us.". From here it gets even more questionable as to the intent of the payment. When the Perez's began looking into and questioning the payment, an invoice from "the Coolest Cow Bakery" was produced. The only problem was the logo created on the invoice was not their logo and the signature identified as that of Epifanio Perez was not his and apparently a forgery. Eventually as part of the investigation conducted by the Board of Education, Norma Castro admitted in her statement that apparently Barbara deJesus had made up the fraudulent invoice and she (Castro) eventually forged the signature on the document(copy of invoice included in PDF file below along with investigation report and statements). Castro says in her statement that she signed Epifanio's signature at his request during a phone conversation, but he strongly denies that he ever authorized her to sign his name.
Principal Pappas's statement seems to concur with Epifanio's statement that he was having a rough time with parents at the school. Pappas wrote that he reminded Perez that "we had already allocated money to his business as part of being involved with the school". Pappas never defined what that involvement was and there is no mention of services or goods being delivered in exchange for the $500.00 payment. There also was never any mention of any agreement requiring future goods or services being delivered in exchange for the $500.00. In reviewing the documents provided through this FOI request, there was no record of the required vendor application forms or W-9Tax forms that are normally required to process a payment. That raises further questions about the accounting practices and safeguards being used to process payments by the Board of Education.
What exactly the $500.00 payment was for or what the expectations were in exchange for the $500.00 were never spelled out in any of the statements, other than Epifanio's statement that he felt he was being bribed.
Investigation Report Part 1:
FOI Batchelder Investigation, Part 1
Investigation Report, Part 2
Foi Batch Elder Investigation Part 2
Batchelder Investigation, Discipline Letters
Foi Batch Elder Investigation Letters
pappas and the others should have been fired,but,in a corrupt city like Hartford no discipline was taken except for a letter of reprimand,which they will flush down the toilet.Welcome to lax Hartford personal responsibility.
ReplyDeleteThis is yet another example of why the state of CT needs to do what Hartford can't. You have Commercial Bribery (class D felony), Forgery in the 1st Degree (class C felony), and possibly one or more Conspiracy charges here. This isn't an in house issue, these are state felony crimes here folks. This needs to be brought to a state prosecutor.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure the superintendent of schools asked Corruption Council what to do and we all know their legal competence. Rose ran to his puppet master Eddie and Eddie looked at the people involved and didn't dislike any of them so under the carpet it goes.
ReplyDeleteA couple of comments to the blogger. I am new to your blog but I thing=k your doing a great job and a great service keeping a eye on the workings of the City of Hartford. The one thing I would suggest is when posting copies of documents you should black out peoples home addresses. I know that it is a public document available to anyone thru FOI, but you should not be poting a persons home address online, it could be the first step to ID theft or worse.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the great work.
You have a valid point about the home address, but I prefer to not alter public documents unless there is a very credible reason to do so. People seem to become suspicious of lines blacked out and ask what was hidden. If it were a date of birth, social security number or checking account number that might make someone a victim, I would have no problem doing that. A home address is not a major piece of information for someone to steal. Any person familiar with the internet could find it quicly. If Mr. Pappas and others were victims in this incident I might agree with you, but the same as I posted arrest warrant affidavits for Mayor Perez and others with their home addresses shown, I think this is fair. It's a judgement call, but I prefer to put the documents up unedited, but I appreciate your comments.
ReplyDeleteEverybody at the BOE knows about creating open PO's for services that are GOING to be provided. Is this something new that they can provide funds prior to receiving the service or product?
ReplyDeleteThey have the whole disciplinary process backwards. It should be the principal getting the reprimand, the long-time secretary getting the verbal, and the new FRA getting counseled.
It's also interesting that they could conduct this investigation so quickly, yet grievances take months to get a response, they ignore other issues such as who is paying for the Superintendent's housing.