Here are stories about some of the embezzlers and other rule-breakers we have encountered. Wondering if someone with a “past” is working in your office? Read on…
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A Patchogue man tried to break into a Bay Shore dentist’s office Tuesday morning but was found stuck in a roof vent by the staff — three hours later, Suffolk police said.
Sean Maranzino, 32, of Montauk Highway, an unemployed HVAC specialist, also was charged with four other burglaries in the past week during which he entered through the heating, ventilation and air conditioning vents on the roof, a clear sign that there was a serial burglar at work, said Third and Fifth precinct detectives.
Detectives knew they were looking for someone who was skinny and a bit of a contortionist — the vents twist and turn, said Det. Sgt. Scott Beiter of the Fifth Precinct.
But in one case, when Maranzino was trying to bust into an East Patchogue pharmacy Thursday, the ducts collapsed over the Jackson Hewitt tax office next door, resulting in what seemed “like a scene from a movie,” police said.
“At some point, even 140 pounds was too much for the ducts to handle,” Beiter said. “He came through the ceiling. … The owner of the place was sleeping there because it was tax season. He heard this crash and confronted him. The guy [Maranzino] kind of made it like he was working on the HVAC system” at 3:45 a.m. He bolted out the back door, police said.
Maranzino was arrested after he tried to break into Calderon Dental on Sunrise Highway about 6 a.m. Tuesday and was found by employees who got to work at 9:30 a.m., police said. Emergency services officers had to dislodge him from the ceiling, police said.
Maranzino was charged with five counts of third-degree burglary. He took cash, protein bars and lockboxes of cash from businesses, police said.
Police said he stole from Vitamin Shoppe on Sunrise Service Road in Bohemia on Friday; High Times Vape on Medford Avenue in North Patchogue about 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, through an unlocked door of a neighboring business before crawling through the ceiling into the vape shop; and Vitamin World on Farber Drive in Bellport some time overnight on Monday.
OKLAHOMA CITY – The former office manager of a dentist’s office on
the metro’s south side allegedly stole more than $65,000 from her
employer who trusted her implicitly. That’s only the amount of money
investigators say they can prove.
Dr. Christian H. Pilgrim said he’s known Ellen Chidester for about 25
years. For most of that time, she was the office manager where he
worked.
He said she had complete access to the company credit card and finances, as well as payroll.
“i trusted this lady so much that I never looked at the credit card
statements,” Dr. Pilgrim said. “She took care of me like, basically like
a mother.”
Not keeping an eye on the bank statements was a mistake he didn’t
know he made until a year after she stopped working there. While his
wife, Elizabeth, who started working with him, was searching for a
specific receipt, they happened upon some odd charges made with the
company card.
“Liz said, ‘Have you been making any purchases to Dress Barn, and
Clinique?’” Dr. Piilgrim recalled, “and to that I said, ‘No I have
not.’”
Further inquiry into credit card charges turned into a full-blown
investigation by Elizabeth and his staff, scrutinizing all of the
charges allegedly made by Chidester.
“There were so many,” Ms. Pilgrim said, “and so few actual business expenses.”
For three months, they searched through credit card statements,
called stores to retrieve receipts, and sat on the phone with Amazon.com
for hours working to find all the fraudulent charges.
“Everyday I would come in and my stomach would hurt because everyday
they would come in and say ‘Dr. Pilgrim, guess what we found. Guess what
we found today. Did you know what you paid for today?’” Dr. Pilgrim
said.
They said they found Chidester used the card to buy all sorts of
things, from Disney World tickets, to gifts for her family, lotions,
clothes, movies, that she used it to pay for the electric bill for her
Shawnee Lake house, and for a family member’s wedding.
“Every year they would buy me a Christmas gift,” Dr. Pilgrim said,
“and little did I know that I was actually paying for it on the company
card.”
They could only access credit card statements from seven years back,
and they left out any suspicious charges that they couldn’t obtain
receipts for to prove she had spent the money personally.
“We couldn’t even get a hold of the Walgreens receipts but there were
thousands of dollars every December from Walgreens,” said receptionist
Jordan Patterson.
Ms. Pilgrim also found that Chidester was allegedly overpaying herself in payroll.
According to court documents, she allegedly spent about $47,870 in
personal charges on the company card, and overpaid herself $18,000,
$65,870 altogether.
News 4 tried to reach Chidester at her home for comment but no one came to the door.
She is charged with with two counts of felony embezzlement and has pleaded not guilty.
“I would like to have my money back and I think the people need to know exactly what she’s done,” Dr. Pilgrim said. “I think she portrays herself as something she’s not.”
A new headstone marks the burial place of Emma Cunningham, acquitted of killing her lover.
Back
in 1857, they were the hottest names in old New-York. Harvey Burdell
and Emma Cunningham — the violent, rapacious and brutally murdered
society dentist and his scheming and probably murderous mistress, mutual
antagonists in the most lurid true-crime drama of the age.
For
well over a century, the pair, essentially disowned by their families,
lay interred in unmarked graves a few hundred yards from each other in
Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, their whereabouts known only to a few
history buffs.
No
longer. Yesterday, before a rapt if small audience of retrospective
voyeurs, two sparkling granite headstones were unveiled: Harvey Burdell,
1811-1857. And Emma Augusta Hempstead Cunningham, 1818-1887. “May God
rest her troubled soul,” reads the inscription.
The
stones — and Mrs. Cunningham’s epitaph — are the doing of an amateur
historian sufficiently obsessed with the case to spend the last seven
years writing a book about it.
The man, Benjamin Feldman, a retired lawyer, real estate developer and Yiddishist, insisted that no endorsement of the couple’s evil ways was implied.
“It’s
not a question of honoring them,” Mr. Feldman, a thin, ponytailed man
with the bearing of a merry undertaker, said after the graveside
service, news of which was published yesterday by AM New York. “It’s a
question of what in Hebrew is called ‘t’chiyat ha-metim’ — raising the
dead. You enlarge all of us when you bring these stories back to life.”
And
what a story. In their ever-spiraling battle of bad faith and
faithlessness, the two lovers managed to embody many of the ills of the
age: the rampant vice and political corruption, the straitened economic
and sexual circumstances of women and the destabilizing influence of new
wealth on traditional social structures.
The
tale, as lovingly told by Mr. Feldman in his book, “Butchery on Bond
Street,” boils down to this: Harvey Burdell was a dentist of humble
background who built a thriving practice in his four-story town house at
31 Bond Street, midway between the vice dens of the Bowery and the
glitzier honky-tonk of lower Broadway. In his spare time, Dr. Burdell,
who was divorced, enjoyed gambling, sexual predation and real estate
swindling.
Emma
Cunningham was a young widow with five children and was desperately
seeking a man who could support her and her brood in the manner to which
she had grown accustomed. She had been married to a distiller who had
squandered most of his family’s fortune.
A tombstone at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn was unveiled Tuesday for Harvey Burdell, a dentist who was killed in 1857. Credit Christian Hansen for The New York Times
No
one alive knows precisely how Emma met Harvey, but once they got
together, in or around 1854, things got pretty intense. They returned
from a whirlwind trip to Saratoga Springs, N.Y., with Mrs. Cunningham
pregnant. She wanted to keep the baby. He did not. She had an abortion,
possibly performed by him.
Nothing
if not persistent, Mrs. Cunningham insinuated herself into the
dentist’s household as the landlady of the rooming house he ran out of
his building. They continued their dalliance. She claimed he raped her
twice, according to court papers.
“It was not a comfortable relationship,” Mr. Feldman observed.
Mrs.
Cunningham tried everything to get Dr. Burdell to agree to tie the
knot. She had him arrested for breach of promise to marry. In secret,
she did marry a man who told the minister he was Harvey Burdell, but who
was almost undoubtedly an impostor.
Three
months after the ceremony, on Jan. 31, 1857, Dr. Burdell was found dead
in his dental clinic. More precisely, according to The New-York Daily
Times, “the body was lying upon the floor, shockingly mutilated, and
surrounded with clots of blood, and the door and walls of the room
besmeared with blood.”
Not
to be outdone, The New York Herald described 6 of the 15 stab wounds.
“Twice the steel had pierced the heart, twice the lungs had been reached
with the deadly point of the stiletto, while the jugular vein and the
carotid artery were both severed,” it said, according to Mr. Feldman’s
book.
Then
the case really took off. The coroner’s inquest was held in Dr.
Burdell’s office, with witnesses testifying in the chair where his
patients had recently sat. A recommendation that one of the dead man’s
eyeballs be excised and his retina examined for traces of what, or whom,
he saw in his dying moments was proposed and discarded. Mrs. Cunningham
threw herself on the open coffin and cried, “Oh, I wish to God you
could speak and tell who done it.”
More
than 8,000 people tried to cram into Grace Church on Broadway at 10th
Street for his funeral. Soon after, she was charged with the murder.
There being no witnesses, and her lawyer arguing successfully that a
member of the weaker sex afflicted with rheumatism was incapable of such
a brutal attack, she was acquitted. (Mr. Feldman said he believed that
Mrs. Cunningham had a prominent role in the murder even if she did not
commit it herself.)
Set
free, Mrs. Cunningham tackled her next mission: obtaining Dr. Burdell’s
estate, estimated at $80,000. But her claim to be carrying his child
was proven false when she was caught taking delivery of another woman’s
baby to call her own. And her insistence that she had married Dr.
Burdell similarly unraveled in the face of testimony that another
paramour had been seen buying a toupee and false whiskers the day of the
wedding in order to resemble Dr. Burdell.
Emma
Cunningham died a pauper at the age of 69. Harvey Burdell’s murder was
never solved. Both were eventually forgotten, until Jeffrey I. Richman,
the historian of Green-Wood Cemetery, read an account of the case and
included it in a book about the cemetery. Mr. Feldman bought the book in
2000, and a fixation was born. Mr. Feldman and the cemetery split the
$6,500 cost of the grave markers.
Yesterday,
as a large spider crept across Emma Cunningham’s tombstone in the crisp
sunlight, Mr. Feldman recalled his excitement when he first read the
twisted tale of Harvey Burdell and Emma Cunningham.
“The interplay between them,” he said, “is one of the most hideous, dysfunctional, psychopathic couplings between man and woman that I’ve ever read. I knew I had to see their graves appropriately marked.”
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Three Northern California residents were
sentenced today by U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. for crimes
relating to their involvement in a mortgage fraud scheme, U.S. Attorney
McGregor W. Scott announced.
Surjit Singh, 72, of Dublin, was sentenced to 11 years and three
months in prison, his son, Rajeshwar Singh, 44, of Pleasanton, was
sentenced to 11 years and three months in prison on four counts of mail
fraud, four counts of bank fraud, and four counts of false statements on
loan and credit applications. Anita Sharma, 56, of Gilroy, was
sentenced to three years and 10 months in prison on two counts of mail
fraud, two counts of bank fraud, and two counts of false statements on
loan and credit applications. Surjit Singh was ordered to pay a $2
million fine, $698,787 in restitution, and $847,000 in forfeiture. Raj
Singh was ordered to pay a $1 million fine, $928,287 in restitution, and
$838,399 in forfeiture. Anita Sharma was ordered to pay $603,180 in
restitution and $30,000 in forfeiture.
According to court documents, in 2006 and 2007, Surjit Singh
recruited individuals with good credit to act as straw buyers for
residential properties owned by his family members and associates.
Rajeshwar Singh, a licensed real estate agent, assisted in the scheme by
submitting loan applications for the straw buyers. Anita Sharma, a
dental assistant at the time, was one of the straw buyers. Because
Sharma and the other straw buyers could not afford the homes based on
their true incomes, the Singhs submitted fraudulent loan applications
and supporting material to lending institutions that included false
statements about the straw buyers’ income, employment, liabilities, and
intent to occupy the homes as their primary residences.
At least 14 properties were involved in the scheme. Anita Sharma
alone purchased five homes in San Jose, San Ramon, Elk Grove,
Sacramento, and Modesto. Other straw buyers purchased or refinanced
properties in Stockton, Modesto, Patterson, Lathrop and Tracy. All of
these homes were ultimately either foreclosed upon or sold in a
short sale where the bank lets homeowners sell their homes for less than
is owed on the mortgage.
Sharma was paid for her involvement in the scheme. Rajeshwar Singh
received financial benefits through broker commissions for the
transactions and as the seller of seven of the properties. He also
continued to occupy the San Ramon property at a time when Anita Sharma
should have been living there. Surjit Singh benefitted through payments
out of escrow directed to shell companies, such as SJR Investments and
BK Investments, which were associated with his daughter and significant
other, whose initials are SJR and BK respectively. These payments were
purportedly for contracting services, which did not occur. He also
benefitted through rental payments made to him and his significant other
by the renters of the homes, as the straw buyers were not living in the
homes. In addition, many of his family members received money by
selling properties and had money directed to them out of escrow.
According to court documents and evidence produced at trial, the
defendants were responsible for the origination of more than $9.3
million in fraudulently procured residential mortgage loans.
Surjit Singh is in custody. Rajeshwar Singh and Anita Sharma are scheduled to self‑surrender on January 9, 2019.
Earlier this month, a Nashville, Tennessee company filed a federal
lawsuit against its former employee alleging trade secrets
misappropriation under the Defend Trade Secrets Act, among other
claims. The plaintiff, Marquee Dental Partners, LLC, operates dental
offices in Tennessee, Alabama, and Kentucky. Marquee purchases existing
dental practices and provides administrative services to those
practices allowing the doctors and support staff to focus on clinic
services and patient care. In a particularly strongly-worded
introductory sentence, the complaint reads: “This case shows what it means to be a faithless corporate executive.”
According to Marquee, that corporate executive, defendant Nathan Cox,
was hired in early January 2016 as the Vice President of Business
Development. Mr. Cox was tasked with helping Marquee grow its network.
Specifically, Mr. Cox’s duties included developing contacts with
practices that met certain financial, geographic, and practice-type
criteria, cultivating relationships with potential future network
members, and gauging their interest in joining Marquee’s network.
Instead of fulfilling his duties, Marquee alleges that Mr. Cox
“concealed the confidential and proprietary information Marquee paid him
to collect, develop, and maintain for its exclusive use; provided
information instead to multiple Marquee competitors—while still employed
by Marquee—in an effort to land a higher paying job; and deleted nearly
all of his [8,200 emails] on his way out the door.” Marquee claims Mr.
Cox abruptly left the country shortly thereafter.
Marquee recovered Mr. Cox’s deleted emails and allegedly found that,
despite his obligations, he withheld acquisition pipeline information
from Marquee. For example, Marquee alleges that one list of potential
leads that Mr. Cox sent Marquee included twelve fewer leads than he
alluded to in emails to Marquee’s competitors.
Marquee brought its claims under the DTSA which was signed into law
effective May 11, 2016. In order to prevail in their DTSA claim,
Marquee will first need to establish that the information Mr. Cox
collected were Marquee’s trade secrets. Then, Marquee will need to
establish that Mr. Cox’s activities amounted to the unauthorized
disclosure of Marquee’s trade secrets. Though these elements are
familiar under state laws, with less than two years on the books, how
the DTSA will be used by Plaintiffs and applied by courts is still to be
determined. If you’re a regular reader, you know we have been keeping
our eye out for developments with respect to the DTSA and will continue
to do so.
In the meantime, a key lesson can already be gleaned from this case: Trade secret owners must be vigilant. Even trusted executives can misappropriate.
NORRISTOWN
— A former patient care coordinator for a Towamencin dental practice
likely isn’t smiling as she fights charges she allegedly gave
unauthorized dental discounts to a boyfriend and other customers.
Michele
K. Olinger, 49, of the 100 block of Susquehanna Avenue, Lansdale, who
is accused of bilking nearly $13,000 from North Penn Dental Arts between
2001 and 2011, filed papers in Montgomery County Court asking that
theft-related charges be dismissed against her on the grounds that
prosecutors failed to present sufficient evidence during a March
preliminary hearing and that the charges were filed in violation of the
statute of limitations for the alleged crimes.
“The
commonwealth failed to present any evidence whatsoever that the defen-
dant acted with an intent to deceive or to defraud,” defense lawyer
Judith L. Watts wrote in court papers filed on Wednesday.
Watts
also argued that prosecutors failed to present any evidence that
Olinger lacked authority to use the company’s computer system or
exceeded the authority given to her use of the computer system.
Watts
claimed the statute of limitations for the alleged crimes expired
between 2006 and 2009 and therefore the charges should be dismissed.
Because
information contained within the computer records of North Penn Dental
Arts form the basis for the charges against Olinger, Watts has asked a
judge to order the business to preserve its computer system “and to make
said system available for inspection by a third party computer company
to be hired by defendant.”
Prosecutor Erik
Crocker will have the chance to address Olinger’s requests when a judge
schedules a pretrial hearing on the matter. A hearing date has not yet
been scheduled.
In the meantime, Olinger
remains free on $10,000 unsecured bail while she awaits trial on charges
of theft of services, theft by deception, forgery, tampering with
records, computer trespass and unlawful use of a computer. If she’s
convicted of all the charges at trial, Olinger faces a possible maximum
sentence of 20 to 40 years in prison.
Olinger has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
An
investigation of Olinger began in September 2011 when the co-owner and
managing director of the dental business located in the 1500 block of
Sumneytown Pike reported the alleged thefts that occurred between March
2001 and June 2011. Olinger began her employment with the company in
June 2000, court papers indicate.
The
business, detectives alleged, had a policy that stated that only spouses
and dependent children of employees were provided a 50 percent
discount. All other discounts were to be approved by a company co-owner,
detectives alleged.
Between March 2001
and June 2011, Olinger “would provide unauthorized discounts to
patients” that defrauded the business of $12,922, according to the
arrest affidavit. According to patient billing records, “these discounts
were given to Olinger’s boyfriend and family members of the boyfriend
or Michele Olinger,” Wittenberger alleged in the criminal complaint.
The discounts were not authorized by the co-owners of the business, detectives alleged.
“Olinger
would employ different methods of accounting for the discounts. One
method was applying the discount directly to the patient’s account,
without authorization,” Wittenberger alleged. “Another method was to
transfer the patient’s balance to Olinger’s account and then applying
the discount.”
Content retrieved from: The Mercury (Pottstown, PA)11 May 2012By Carl Hessler Jr. chessler@journalregister.com
A woman who worked as a receptionist and
bookkeeper for an Arlington Heights dentist was charged with aggravated
identity theft, financial fraud and theft for, authorities allege,
stealing more than $600,000 from her employer over about six years
beginning in 2009.
Charged along with Caren Irsuto, 56, was her husband Scott Irsuto, 58, who faces theft and financial fraud charges.
In setting Caren Irsuto’s bond at
$600,000, Cook County Judge Marc Martin seemingly referenced the money
authorities say she stole. Martin ordered Scott Irsuto held on $28,000
cash bail, the loss authorities attributed to him. Each must post the
entire amount to be released from custody.
Caren Irsuto’s actions “had a
devastating impact on the dental practice,” said Assistant Cook County
State’s Attorney Karen Crothers, who described the dentist as a solo
practitioner who noticed the theft in early 2016 after “an increase in
business without a corresponding increase in revenue.”
He brought in a consultant and relieved Caren Irsuto of her duties, Crothers said.
On a subsequent Sunday when the
office was closed, the dentist and his wife drove by the office and saw
Caren and Scott Irsuto in the parking lot, Crothers said. When the
dentist called Irsuto to ask why, she denied being there, Crothers said.
The dentist never saw her again.
Meanwhile, an internal review
showed “inconsistencies between accounts received and insurance
reports,” Crothers said. The dentist eventually discovered Caren Irsuto
failed to deposit 1,464 checks totaling $625,526.23, she said.
The checks, made out to the
dental practice, came from 98 different insurers and dozens of patients,
Crothers said. Each bore the endorsement of the dentist, who told
authorities he did not sign any of the checks.
The defendants cashed the checks
at currency exchanges, a gas station and a local bar or deposited them
in a bank account, Crothers said, adding “it is believed the money ws
used for a variety of things.”
Scott Irsuto next appears in court on March 27. Caren Irsuto appears in court on March 29.
Heidi is currently awaiting her trial for embezzling from a Spokane dentist. We hear that she may have moved to Idaho and gotten married. She may now be using the last name Capaul.
Here is her court file:
Case Information
18-1-04382-5 | STATE OF WASHINGTON VS NELSON, HEIDI MARIE
Case Number
18-1-04382-5
Court
Spokane
File Date
10/02/2018
Case Type
ADL Criminal Adult
Case Status
Active
Party
Plaintiff (Criminal)
STATE OF WASHINGTON , NFN
Active Attorneys
Lead Attorney
Evans, Casey Allen
Court Appointed
Defendant (WIP)
NELSON, HEIDI MARIE
DOB
XX/XX/XXXX
Active Attorneys
Lead Attorney
Gieri, William Anthony
Court Appointed
Events and Hearings
10/02/2018 Information
Comment
1: INFORMATION;
10/02/2018 Statement of Facts
Comment
2: STATEMENT OF FACTS;
10/11/2018 Certificate of Address Search
Comment
3: CERTIFICATE OF ADDRESS SEARCH;
10/11/2018 Summons
Comment
4: SUMMONS;
10/29/2018
Arraignment
Judicial Officer
Price, Michael P
Hearing Time
8:00 AM
Comment
CCCA : Chief Criminal Calendar
10/29/2018 Initial Arraignment
Comment
-: INITIAL ARRAIGNMENT; JUDGE MICHAEL P. PRICE;
10/29/2018 Notice of Appearance
Comment
5: NOTICE OF APPEARANCE;
10/29/2018 Order Setting Trial Date
Comment
6: ORDER SETTING TRIAL DATE; 01-22-2019TA; JUDGE MICHAEL P. PRICE;
10/30/2018 Omnibus Application of Prosecuting Attorney
Comment
7: OMNIBUS APPLICATION OF PROS ATTY; JUDGE MICHAEL P. PRICE;
10/30/2018 Order Authorizing
Comment
8: ORDER AUTHORIZING BOOKING PROCESS; JUDGE MICHAEL P. PRICE;
10/30/2018 Order Establishing Conditions of Release
Comment
9: ORDER ESTABLISHING COND. OF RELEASE; JUDGE MICHAEL P. PRICE;
11/19/2018 Omnibus Application by Defendant
12/24/2018 Subpoena Duces Tecum
01/02/2019 Affidavit Declaration Certificate Confirmation of Service
01/03/2019 Ex Parte Action With Order
Judicial Officer
Szambelan, Michelle D
Comment
SIGNED: CSO PT 2/22 T 3/11; -GIERI;
01/03/2019 Affidavit Declaration Certificate Confirmation of Service
01/03/2019 Order Setting Trial Date
Judicial Officer
Szambelan, Michelle D
Comment
03-11-19
01/04/2019
Pretrial Conference
Judicial Officer
Szambelan, Michelle D
Hearing Time
9:00 AM
Comment
CCCA : Chief Criminal Calendar
01/22/2019
TA Criminal Trials
Hearing Time
8:00 AM
02/22/2019 Hearing Continued Stipulated
Judicial Officer
Szambelan, Michelle D
Comment
Court Reporter: TERRI ROSADOVELAZQUEZ; SIGNED: SCHEDULING ORDER (see order for specific dates)
02/22/2019 Order Setting Trial Date
Judicial Officer
Szambelan, Michelle D
Comment
4-15-19
02/27/2019 Subpoena Duces Tecum
Comment
DR. JOSHUA COCHRAN
03/08/2019 Affidavit Declaration Certificate Confirmation of Service
A University of Kentucky dean who was removed after UK settled a
contentious lawsuit filed by one of his underlings has now sued the
school himself, accusing officials of retaliating against him for
reporting problems at the College of Dentistry, such as the theft of
gold dental crowns.
Late last year, UK settled a lawsuit with Raynor Mullins, a long-time dental professor who accused Kyrkanides of firing him after he criticized Gov. Matt Bevin’s proposed changes to Medicaid. UK paid Mullins more than $620,000 and gave him a new position. A few weeks later, UK announced that Kyrkanides was out as dean, but would return as a tenured faculty member after a one-year sabbatical. UK did not give a reason for the demotion at the time.
Kyrkanides’ lawsuit, filed in
federal court, doesn’t mention the Mullins case. Instead, the lawsuit
cites numerous other problems that the dean allegedly uncovered. They
include:
▪ A
departmental deficit of almost $2 million because clinical faculty were
being paid salary supplements based on gross revenue from clinical
services, not net revenue. The lawsuit alleges Provost David Blackwell
and other officials did nothing to address the dean’s concerns.
▪ Last summer, the lawsuit says, Kyrkanides forwarded to Blackwell allegations that College of Dentistry employees were stealing gold crowns and selling them, or converting them to gold coins. An internal investigation confirmed the theft, the lawsuit says, but the provost’s office did not address it.
Kyrkanides also contends he was
retaliated against because he supported a group of minority students who
said some faculty members discriminated against them. The lawsuit says
Kyrkanides also filed a complaint with the UK Office of Institutional
Equity and Equal Opportunity against Blackwell for harassment.
In a statement, UK spokesman Jay Blanton said the allegations are without merit.
“Provost David Blackwell removed
Professor Kyrkanides from the administrative position of dean for poor
performance,” Blanton said in a statement. “The university has
addressed, or is addressing, all of the issues raised in his complaint,
which Professor Kyrkanides failed to resolve himself when he was serving
as dean.”
Citing a state whistleblower
protection law, Kyrkanides’ lawsuit demands that he be reinstated as
dean and get $7.5 million for humiliation, and a further $10 million in
punitive damages.
H. Wayne Roberts, a Lexington attorney representing Kyrkanides, said the case has nothing to do with the Mullins settlement.
“I think the complaint states facts, not allegations, to support the whistleblower allegation,” Roberts said. “His accomplishments as a dean are awesome, the university demoting him to faculty is inexcusable. The university will be hard pressed to come up with non-retaliatory reasons for their actions.”
UK faculty has sued UK and a Bevin administration official for what he calls retaliation for criticizing the governor’s Medicaid waiver proposal.
Howard Pilmar, a successful New York businessman, was found dead inside his Manhattan office on March 21, 1996 — a slaying that shocked New Yorkers because of its brutality.
Pilmar’s throat was slashed and he was stabbed 48 times. The attack
continued after his heart stopped beating and his body was left on the
floor, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance said in a news release.
Investigators spent more than two decades looking for his killers and
finally arrested two people in 2017 — Pilmar’s widow, Roslyn Pilmar,
then 60, and her brother, Evan Wald, then 43.
Friday, a jury found them guilty of second-degree murder.
Wald’s lawyer could not be reached for comment Saturday. Sanford
Talkin, Roslyn Pilmar’s lawyer, told CNN, “We are disappointed in the
verdict and plan to appeal and continue to fight the case.”
Prosecutors said Roslyn Pilmar had financial problems and benefited from her husband’s death.
She managed the coffee shops started by her husband inside his office
supply stores and owed $15,000 in unpaid state taxes on that part of
the business, the district attorney’s office said. Wald also worked in
the coffee shops.
In early 1996, before Howard’s death, Roslyn Pilmar’s former
employer, a dentist’s office, demanded reimbursement of approximately
$200,000 it claimed she had stolen from the business, prosecutors said.
In the news release, the district attorney’s office said Roslyn
Pilmar and her brother requested keys to the building where Howard
Pilmar’s office was located and asked for information about how to close
the office at night and where the video cameras were located in the
building lobby.
“Then on March 21, 1996, the defendants met the victim at his
office,” the district attorney said. Howard Pilmar’s body was found the
next morning by the company’s controller.
After her husband’s death, Pilmar received around $1.2 million in
life insurance benefits, according to the district attorney. She also
received ownership of Howard Pilmar’s businesses, two homes and custody
of the couple’s then 10-year-old son.
Roslyn Pilmar used the money to repay her debts, the DA’s office
said. On April 30, 1999, she pleaded guilty to grand larceny in the
second degree for the theft from her former employer. After paying back
the stolen funds, she was sentenced to probation.
The investigation found new life in 2013 after police found witnesses
with new information and new evidence, blood at the crime scene that
was a match to Evan Wald, Assistant District Attorney Elizabeth Lederer
said.
“For nearly 23 years, Roslyn Pilmar and Evan Wald evaded justice for
their gruesome crime and thought they would get away with it, but today,
a jury rightfully found them guilty of Murder in the Second Degree for
planning Mr. Pilmar’s murder together and acting in concert to carry out
the cold-blooded killing,” Vance said.
“I thank the prosecutors in my Office’s Cold Case and Forensic Sciences Unit and NYPD detectives for more than two decades of dedication to this case and ensuring that Howard’s death was never forgotten.”
