HARD TO $WALLOW
'Carpool' defense for lunch ladies
The only green that two Connecticut lunch ladies handled was creamed spinach, one of the theft suspects’ lawyers claimed Tuesday — arguing it’s clear the sisters are broke because they still carpool.
“These two individuals don’t have money, and they carpooled together” to court, said Darnell Crosland, who is representing Joanne Pascarelli, to reporters. “That’s another evidentiary telltale sign.”
And “if they were stealing money, they wouldn’t be living where they’re living,’’ he added.
Pascarelli, 61, and her sister, Marie Wilson, 67, are charged with collectively embezzling $478,588 between 2012 and 2017 from their respective schools in tony New Canaan.
They briefly appeared in Norwalk Superior Court on Tuesday, where Pascarelli pleaded not guilty, while Wilson declined to enter a plea until her next court date.
After the hearing, Crosland claimed to reporters that the missing money actually vanished due to school-district “negligence” and an accounting system messier than the sloppy joes the women were slinging.
“We have researched this case since its inception, and what we’ve learned is that there were complicated revenue streams of income for the school-lunch program that went beyond traditional lunch lines,” Crosland said. “We also learned that there was systemic negligence’’ within Saxe Middle School’s lunchroom bookkeeping, he charged.
But prosecutors say the sisters’ scam may have been going on for as long as 15 years. The suspects were only charged for five years because of the statute of limitations, officials said last month after the arrests.
Crosland countered to reporters that the women are the victims of a “witch hunt” and are being scapegoated because officials can’t provide any other ex- planation for how the sum went missing. “All [the sisters] did was work . . . and now the state is throwing a bunch of stuff against the wall, hoping something sticks,” he said.
The sisters resigned last year after they were told they were under investigation.
Pascarelli and Wilson, who are both charged with larceny but are being tried separately, are out on $50,000 bail apiece.
Wilson’s lawyer, Mark Sherman, said after Tuesday’s proceeding, “We plan on entering a not-guilty plea at the appropriate time.” Wilson formerly worked at New Canaan HS.
A New Canaan schools spokesman declined comment.