Friday, October 06, 2006

Air America's Shady Beginnings

Two executives from Gloria Wise Community Center, a NYC charity that ran a school in the Bronx and youth and senior programs from government money and grants, have been indicted for misappropriating $1.2 million. They pleaded guilty.

Beside their "unusally large salaries" ($249,610 for Rosen and $185,217 for Aulenbach) the two, along with three others, took $290,000 for their own use.   Gloria Wise money provided the start up of $875,000 to Air America. 

[Page numbers refer to the NYC Investigation Findings, link found at bottom.]

According to the New York Sun, the facility was also found to have falsified student records to show pre-school children had been vaccinated when they had not to pass a health department audit.  (p 30)   There were also speech therapy schemes to bill for one-on-one therapy that sent children for a group session. (p 30)

Lorraine Corva, who oversaw the nursery school aimed at children requiring special education took more than $37,000 to cover car payments for two BMW's.  Her salary was $189,000.  The Dept. of Investigation report showed she improperly received over $60,000 via various schemes. (p 11)

Sinohe Terrero was Gloria Wise's Fiscal Director.  He left in 2003 to become Vice-President of Finance at Air America. 
New York City Dept of Investigation 37-page Findings.

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