Newsday (New York)


November 11, 2002 Monday ALL EDITIONS


SECTION: BUSINESS, Pg. A33

LENGTH: 925 words

HEADLINE: Saluting Unsung Whistle-Blowers

BYLINE: Mark Harrington. Write to Mark Harrington at mharring@news day.com.

BODY:
The statement from the Queens district attorney last month credited no fewer than 22 officials and staff for busting a $6 million bid-rigging scheme to install computer labs in public schools. But it omitted two vital contributors: the original whistle-blower, Frank Mosco, and the late Edward Stancik, former special commissioner of investigations.

Four years ago, Mosco, then a 27-year-old entrepreneur at the ambitiously named computer firm Web Wide World Industries grew indignant, then suspicious, when school board officials consistently rejected his low bid to install computer labs in 19 public schools in southeast Queens.

Mosco spent months attempting to alert city and state authorities to a bidding process he knew was corrupt. When he finally caught the attention of the city office of Special Commissioner of Investigations, then run by Stancik, Mosco provided city schools gumshoe Ronald Vance with thousands of pages of documents, insider testimony about the bogus bidding process, and computer expertise to show systems installed for the schools were, in the words of one city official, "crap."

Mosco fended off harassing phone calls and even fished through trash bins looking for evidence. The district attorney's office joined the case in the spring of 1999, following a series of stories in Newsday.

Last month, the Queens district attorney announced five guilty pleas in the case, including those of former schools superintendent Celestine Miller, 61; Williston Park attorney Ray Shain, 46; and Kinson Tso, 36, who is president of Melville-based Business Innovative Technology Inc., which improperly won the bids. Also pleading guilty were Miller's husband, William Harris, 84, and a Queens businessman, Thomas Kontogiannis, 53.

According to the DA, "between January 1, 1995, and October 31, 2000, they engaged in a scheme to defraud the school district in which they submitted false and collusive bids, gained insider information and influenced competing bidders in order to assure that BIT was awarded District 29 school computer contracts."

As part of what officials called a settlement "without precedent" in Queens, the five who pleaded guilty agreed to pay a combined restitution of $4.8 million in the next six years, starting with an initial payment of more than $1 million. In return, they will be spared jail time when they appear before a judge for sentencing next month.

For Mosco, who lost his company and endured a related divorce and custody battle through the investigation, the guilty pleas and proposed sentences ring hollow, amounting to a "cheap, long-term loan" for those convicted.

"I'd like to know why the city couldn't get the money back and punish these people," said Mosco, who grew up in Queens but who has left the area and recently took a second job as a part-time crossing guard. "The message it sends is almost as bad as letting these people get away with it entirely."

A spokeswoman for Queens District Attorney Richard Brown said the agencies settled on restitution "to help the children." She noted the five who pleaded guilty "now have a felony record. That's a big thing as far as someone's life and reputation are concerned."

Some parents, who first complained about the subpar computers in 1998 only to be spurned by the city Board of Education, are no happier.

"The only people who lose in this are our children," said Ronnie Rogers, mother of a now-seventh-grade boy in Rosedale. "They have suffered a terrible injustice. They were deprived of this technology. My question is, what can the city do to make that up to our children?"

Schools Chancellor Joel Klein, who inherited the mess, said in a statement the $5 million restitution "will be put back into the classroom." The city "has been working on a plan to do catch-up for all kids in the district," added a board official. Science labs and Internet connections will be installed in several of the affected schools immediately to correct some of the deficiencies.

Rogers suggested the city go further, testing children who attended and have since left the affected schools, and offering extra computer training where needed. "They're behind all the other districts," she said.

Meanwhile, David Chai, a spokesman for the Board of Education, said the city is grateful for the help of the whistle-blowers, even though they have never before been acknowledged. A letter was sent to Mosco and an associate just last week.

"Thank you for stepping forward and assisting authorities in their investigation," Tony Shorris, deputy chancellor for operations, wrote in one of the letters. "Your contributions assisted investigators in ridding our school system of unscrupulous individuals."

No board of ed officials were indicted in the case, though Mosco had suspicions that some were enablers. "We expect and demand the people that work here have a high level of integrity in any position," Chai said. Purchasing for high-volume items such as computers is now centralized, aiming to help prevent corruption.

Through a three-year correspondence with Newsday, Mosco has never regretted coming forward to expose the bid-rigging, even though he believes it contributed to the loss of his business and the breakup of his marriage. "I think I would still do almost everything the same," he wrote in an e-mail last week.

His e-mails during the three years vouch for him. Each has come stamped with a quote from philosopher Edmund Burke: "All it takes for evil to flourish is for good men to do nothing."

GRAPHIC: File Photo by Jeffrey Salter - The late Edward Stancik helped break the bid-rigging ring.

LOAD-DATE: November 11, 2002