Restitution Law for Fraud Examiners

Each year, employees embezzle millions of dollars in taxpayer monies from public entities. Here are ways that fraud examiners can help find and recover some of these funds.

Dr. Frank A. Tassone, the former superintendent of the Roslyn School District, in Long Island, N.Y., stood before Judge Alan R. Honoroff of Nassau County Court on Oct. 10, 2006. Once nattily attired in tailored suits, Tassone now wore an orange jail jumpsuit and shackles. "My actions were shameful, deplorable," Tassone said tearfully. "I am deeply sorry to the people of Roslyn and to the children."

The judge then sentenced Tassone to four to 12 years in prison for stealing $2.2 million from the Roslyn School District. He is the sixth person sentenced so far in connection with a six-year $11.2 million larceny scandal, which implicated relatives, friends, and associates of the school district's top administrators.¹ Now comes the tough part: reclaiming some of those millions.

There are few limits to the ingenuity of corrupt insiders and suppliers who defraud school districts and other governmental entities of millions of dollars in taxpayer monies. The intentional breach of fiduciary and contractual obligations by product and service suppliers is too often nurtured by school district or other government employees who seek only personal gain.