Ex-school official guilty of theft
WEST CHESTER » Richard Wallace Como, the former superintendent of the Coatesville Area School District, was found guilty of multiple counts of felony theft Friday for a scheme he concocted to purchase commemorative championship rings for members of the high school’s football team.
Como, who stepped down from his position in 2013 just before a scandal broke in the dis-
trict over racist text messages he exchanged with a member of his administration, also was found guilty of charges that he improperly arranged to get his son a job as a custodial supervisor with the district, and manipulated the sale of an electric generator he owned to the district.
The 71-year-old Como, who rose through the ranks of the district he called home for more than 20 years, sat stoically at the defense table between his two attorneys and showed little emotion as the jury foreman read the verdict, with its repeated intonation of the word “guilty.” Supporters in Senior Judge Thomas Gavin’s courtroom, however, appeared shocked at the verdict. When he heard the decision on the charge involving his hiring, Como’s son Matthew Como dropped his head and stared at the floor.
The jury of seven women and five men deliberated for almost 12 hours over two days before delivering the verdict. Como was found guilty of two counts of theft by unlawful taking, two counts of theft by failure to make required disposition of funds, two counts of dealing in unlawful proceeds, and four counts of conflict of interest. He also was found guilty of two counts each of attempted theft by unlawful taking, theft by failure to make required disposition of funds, and dealing in unlawful proceeds.
The former superintendent was acquitted on charges of theft and receiving stolen property related to accusations that he filed false expense reports for reimbursement with the district for trips and meals during his tenure.
The prosecution had contended during the eight-day long trial that Como had used his position of authority in the district to engineer the building of a “slush fund” that was used to purchase commemorative rings for not only members of the 2012 championship Red Raiders football team, but also himself, coaches, friends and wives – all without approval from the Coatesville Area School Board.
Those funds he gathered, said Assistant District Attorney Andrea Cardamone in her closing argument to the jury on Thursday, were not his to maneuver through various accounts, but rather belonged to the students of the district, or to the district itself. When Como took the money without permission from those who it rightly belonged to, even if it did not go into his pocket directly, “That’s theft,” she said.
“We are very pleased with the verdict today, said Cardamone, who prosecuted the case with Assistant District Attorney Brian Burack and Chester County Detective Ben Martin. “It was a long and complex case. It is obvious that the jury worked very hard and took their responsibility very seriously. We are glad that we were able to provide them with the evidence they needed to reach the right result.
“There are a lot good people in the Coatesville Area School District that have waited a long time for today to come,” said Cardamone, referring to the length of time between Como’s arrest more than three years ago and
Friday’s verdict. “We are happy that justice was done.”
Como, of West Brandywine, did not comment on the verdict after it was delivered around 3:30 p.m.
His lead attorney, Christian Hoey of Paoli, said he would consult with his client before determining whether to pursue an appeal. The defense had contended that it was the prosecution that had abused its authority, bringing charges when there was no true criminal liability. Everything that Como was accused of doing was known by others in the district and approved, his attorney contended.
“We respect the decision of the jury,” said Hoey after the verdict. “We believe that this case is fraught with legal difficulties, and so we expect to explore them with an appeal.” He was assisted in the trial by co-counsel Albert Sardella.
Gavin set Feb. 5 as a date when the sides will meet to determine what date will be set for Como’s sentencing. He faces the possibility of a prison sentence, as Gavin has already sent Como’s texting partner, former Athletic Director James Donato III, to county prison.
Earlier in the day, Gavin’s apparent frustration over continued disputes between the two sides in the case was on display as he considered requests from the jury for exhibits. “I think it’s going to be one of those days,” he said to the jurors as he dealt with a series of questions they had sent.
For example, Hoey objected strenuously to the possibility that the jury would get to see the school district’s policy on student activity funds – which he said was not “controlling” in the case – as well as the state’s Public School Code dealing with such funds. Those exhibits were related to the charge that Como had illegally used money in a Student Council account for the purchase of the commemorative rings. Hoey said that the document would prejudice his client, since it would be similar to sending the jury the entire state Crimes Code.
He had also asked for Gavin to let the jury see the district’s nepotism policy, which the defense contends Como followed specifically in the hiring of his son, Matthew Como. When Gavin refused, saying the jury had not asked to view the policy, Hoey said it was an “uneven ruling.” Gavin bristled. “I’m not in the business of making uneven rulings,” the judge said. “Maybe they don’t want the nepotism policy because it has been talked about so much they don’t need it.”
When Hoey continued to press his case, Gavin shut him off.
“Mr. Hoey, when I want your view, I’ll ask for it. You are fast crossing the line on advocacy.”
Later, when the attorneys could not agree on which documents to give the jury to answer their request for exhibits related to the district’s purchase of Como’s electric generator, Gavin grew exasperated.
“It’s come to the point where hoping you agree on anything is pointless,” he said. “Take a seat.”
The jury sent a final question to Gavin at 1:20 p.m., asking for clarification on the conflict of interest charge relating to the generator purchase, and of the theft charge concerning the transfer of money from school district accounts to Como’s “Red Raider Fund.” Less then two hours later came the announcement that a verdict had been reached.
The charges against Como were announced in dramatic fashion by a Chester County Grand Jury presentment in December 2014, 16 months after Como had stepped down from the position he had held in the Coatesville school system since 2005. Although Como was one of only two people charged criminally in the 114-page document, the presentment took aim not only at him, but the district solicitor at the time and the school board members who were serving in 2013, when many of the events occurred — some of whom testified in the trial.
The reasons for his departure from the district he had called home as an educator since the 1980s were never discussed during the trial, but stemmed from the discovery of racially charged text messages he had exchanged with the district’s thenathletic director, James Donato III. In them, the pair used common, vulgar epithets to refer to black and Latino staff members, and black students.
The Coatesville district is one of the county’s most heavily minority enrollment districts, comprised of about 48 percent minority students.
“This investigation is about the greed of adults and the tears of school children,” the presentment declared. “This investigation is also about a school board who enabled this greed and caused these tears through sheer negligence, asleep at the wheel of the school district that they were supposed to be directing.”
Como and his associates, “ran the school district as if it was their own personal fiefdom. Money was stolen and misdirected, felons were hired, enormous legal bills were incurred, cronyism and nepotism ran rampant, and at times it appeared that the school district was built around the best interests of the football
team, like the worst outlaw NCAA football programs of the past,” the report stated. “Mostly, the board appeared blissfully ignorant of what was going on in the school district that they were sworn to represent.
The report said that the county District Attorney’s Office had begun investigating allegations of financial mismanagement by Como in June 2013. But it was in August of that year, when the news of the racially charged texts reached the desk of District Attorney Tom Hogan, and the school board took the controversial step of allowing Coma to retire without disciplinary action that the grand jury was empaneled.
“Throughout the text messaging scandal, the board demonstrated a consistent pattern of abdication of responsibility to others, a complete failure to investigate independently the serious concerns raised by the public and the DAO, a gross waste and misuse of public resources, and a troubling instinct to deliberately operate in the shadows, intentionally hiding facts from and deceiving the public it was supposed to serve,” the report stated.
Indeed in her closing argument Thursday, Cardamone referred to the behavior of some the district officials who testified in negative terms.
“So many of the witnesses in this case have unclean hands and guilty consciences,” she said. “I submit to you that they have regrets. There were things happening that they knew or suspected were wrong,” but either did not pay close enough attention or “looked the other way.”
In its opening, the grand jury report declared that the tragedy of the case was not Como’s downfall, but the effect of his actions on the 7,000 students in the district.
“The tears of school children refers to the students at CASD, who are the true victims here,” it read. Coatesville “is the poorest school district in Chester County and consistently ranks substandard in academic rankings. But instead of spending money on teachers and materials to help the students at CASD, the senior administration and board spent their time and the school district’s money dreaming up new ways to amuse and enrich themselves.
“The tragedy of this case is that the greed of the senior administrators and the apathy of the Board has deprived children of a fair shot at a good education, one of the bedrocks of the American way of life,” the report stated.