The embezzlement scandal has cost the Roslyn School District over $7 million. At least $2 million of that total is going to be repaid.

Last Monday, at Nassau County Court offices in Mineola, Dr. Frank A. Tassone, the district's former superintendent, pled guilty to two counts of Grand Larceny charges.

Dr. Tassone's guilty plea, said Nassau County District Attorney Denis Dillon, is contingent upon a full agreement to cooperate with the DA's office in the ongoing investigation of the school district.

If Dr. Tassone agrees to cooperate, he will face a 4-12 year prison sentence. He will also return up to $2 million in embezzled funds to the district. Sentencing could take place in late November.

At his Sept. 26 press conference, Dillon said the $2 million represents "virtually all the money Tassone stole."

Also at the press conference, Dillon gave some background to the events that culminated in Dr. Tassone's guilty plea.

In June 2005, a Nassau County Grand Jury indicted Dr. Tassone on two counts of Grand Larceny, one in the First Degree, the other in the Second Degree.

The first indictment covered the theft of over $1 million from the district.

The second indictment stems from the arrangement Dr. Tassone had made with Stephen Signorelli, principal of Word Power (WP), a company that prepared and printed handbooks for the school district. Signorelli, Dillon said, "padded invoices with the assistance of Tassone."

From 1994 to 2004, Dillon added, the total payments by the Roslyn School District to WP were approximately $572,000. From January 1999 until mid-October 2002, approximately $219,000 was transferred by Signorelli from the WP account to Dr. Tassone.

In all, the $2 million stolen from the district was spent on airline travel, cruises, hotel and resort accommodations, dermatology treatments, furniture, jewelry and meals, Dillon said.

"At a conference this summer, Nassau County Court Judge Alan Honorof gave Tassone and his counsel a commitment of no more than 4-12 years incarceration if he pled guilty," Dillon said. "This commitment also meant that Tassone would not have to cooperate with my office. At that point we pulled the offer off of the table and told Tassone's counsel that he would have to plead to the entire indictment and we would still recommend the maximum time of incarceration. Thereafter, we received a call from Tassone's counsel that he was willing to cooperate with our office. With Tassone's cooperation, we have been able to arrest and indict Andrew Miller, the former auditor of the Roslyn School District and we do anticipate additional arrests of other people associated with the Roslyn School District scandal. The arrest and indictment of Miller may lead to information on the 50 or more school districts that he audited across Long Island."

Miller is a former partner of Miller, Lilly & Pearce, LLP, Certified Public Accountants and the audit partner for the Roslyn School District and, as noted, over 50 districts on the Island. Earlier this month, Miller was indicted on 26 counts, including Tampering with Public Records, Falsifying Business Records, Tampering with Physical Evidence, and Offering a False Instrument for Filing.

The DA's investigation into the embezzlement scandal began in February 2004. During the summer of 2004, New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi conducted an audit of the Roslyn School District, which revealed that $11.2 million was unaccounted for by the district.

The audit supplemented the DA office's own criminal investigation. So far, the investigations have identified $7.2 million that the DA's office has charged as being criminally stolen.

The indictment of Andrew Miller was only the latest in a string of indictments resulting from the investigation. In addition to both Dr. Tassone and Miller, others indicted include former Assistant Superintendent Pamela Gluckin, former Account Clerk Debra Rigano, and Stephen Signorelli himself.

While Dr. Tassone has been deemed responsible for $2 million of the embezzled funds, that is not the highest total so far in the investigation.

Ms. Gluckin has been estimated responsible for $4 million in theft, while Ms. Rigano's embezzlement total is approximately $780,000.

Back in Roslyn, the embezzlement resulted in the first rejection of a Roslyn school budget in years, plus a near complete overhaul of the district's board of education. In time, board members from the embezzlement era either resigned, declined to run for re-election, or were defeated in re-election bids.