Former school superintendent pleads guilty in forgery case
A former superintendent with the Hamilton public school board pleaded guilty to using forged documents to obtain United States citizenship for his children.
Patrick Rocco’s case, which the judge called “puzzling,” leaves loose ends that Thursday’s court proceeding failed to answer.
Topping the list is why Rocco, who had a good career, no criminal record and a history of community service, broke the law to qualify his kids for dual citizenship. Also mysterious is the $15,926 restitution he paid to his former employer, the Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board related to an allegation that he used a board credit card to buy $3,000 worth of hockey equipment for personal use. That charge was dropped Thursday and Rocco’s lawyer said his client “makes no admissions” in relation to the charge. Yet more than five times that amount was paid by his client to the board.
Rocco, 57, pleaded guilty to two counts of passing forged documents. Another two charges related to the creation of the documents were withdrawn by assistant Crown attorney Jim Vincelli.
Justice Joe Fiorucci accepted a joint submission and handed down a one-year conditional sentence to Rocco, who will spend the first six months spent under house arrest.
An agreed statement of facts says in August 2015 Rocco, superintendent of human resources, told HWDSB director Manny Figeuiredo he had accepted a position as a superin- tendent with the Toronto District School board. In an interview, HWDSB spokesperson Shawn McKillop said an item of technology belonging to the board was not returned by Rocco when he left. That was a “red flag” that led Figeuiredo to examine Rocco’s email and order an audit. That, in turn, is how the emails about the forged documents “came to light” and “determined expenses outside of our expense policies.”
It appears Rocco paid back nearly $16,000 for those wrongfully-claimed expenses. While looking into the expenses, Figeuiredo inadvertently discovered emails between Rocco and Patrick Elliott, a vice-principal with the board, that hatched a plan to alter documents for the citizenship applications.
Rocco’s children are now aged 22, 21 and 19. He has been married 24 years.With the help of the forged documents, dual citizenship was granted to the eldest child. The others were in the process of being approved, court heard. All three have had their status rescinded.
Elliott, who is also charged and whose case is still before the courts, is accused of using his computer skills to doctor electronic documents from Niagara University in New York state, where Rocco was once en- rolled in the MBA program.
On Jan. 5, 2015, Rocco, who was born in the United States, received correspondence from the U.S. Consulate in response to his inquiry about obtaining U.S. citizenship for his children. The consulate outlined the criteria. Rocco, who lived in Canada continuously since 1970 and has dual citizenship, did not meet the criteria.
On July 14, 2015 Rocco sent an email to Elliott that said: “I will call you, but need to change address on a PDF — I have the original as well that I scanned — any thoughts? Need to put in my US address and will explain.”
A series of email exchanges over the next month has Rocco sending two Niagara University documents to Elliott asking him to change the address he lived at while he was a student there to a Lewiston, N.Y., address, where he fraudulently said he lived from 1984 to 1987.
On Aug. 4, 2017, Rocco was arrested by Hamilton police. Elliott was arrested Nov. 30, 2017. Both were charged with two counts of making forged documents and two counts of using forged documents. Elliott was further charged with two counts of transferring forged documents.
Court heard there was no evidence of plans to use the citizenships for financial gain or to jeopardize U.S. security.
“This was the misguided result of an effort to give broader options to his children,” Rocco’s lawyer told the court, without elaborating.
“It’s puzzling why someone of your character and background participated in this offence,” said Fiorucci. “I don’t think we’ll ever see you here in these courts again.”