SPRINGFIELD, Mass. (AP) – A former school department manager who pleaded guilty last year to stealing $10,000 from the department was arrested Tuesday on charges that he doled out no-show jobs to his twin brother and a friend.
The charges against Alfonso Carrano, 34, of Springfield, stem from the federal government’s ongoing probe into public corruption in the state’s third-largest city. Carrano and his brother, Francesco Carrano, and Robyn Avigliano are charged with program fraud and lying to federal agents.
Alfonso Carrano pleaded not guilty to charges of program fraud and lying to federal agents Tuesday in U.S. District Court. His brother and Avigliano, 44, of South Hadley, will be arraigned on the same charges Aug. 3.
They were all released on unsecured bonds.
According to a nine-page indictment handed up last week and unsealed Tuesday, Alfonso Carrano put his brother, Francesco, and Avigliano on the school department’s payroll as school bus monitors between 2002 and 2003. While Alfonso Carrano was signing their time sheets during that time, his brother and Avigliano weren’t showing up for work, federal agents say.
The bus that Carrano’s brother was supposed to be working on served handicapped students, according to the indictment.
Authorities say Alfonso Carrano also gave his brother and Avigliano no-show jobs at a warehouse that stored meals that would be distributed to school cafeterias.
“We’re not going to put up with these no-show job schemes in a time that the city is struggling and the school department is struggling,” said FBI supervisory agent Michael O’Reilly.
Alfonso Carrano was sentenced last year to serve four months in federal custody after pleading guilty to stealing $10,000 from the school department. The money was supposed to go to the school department for setting up vending machines. But Carrano told the vendors to make the checks payable to him instead of the school department.
As part of his punishment, Assistant U.S. Attorney William Welch wanted Carrano to stand outside the school department’s headquarters wearing a sandwich board reading: “I STOLE $10,000 FROM THE SCHOOL DEPARTMENT. THIS IS A SERIOUS CRIME. THIS IS PART OF MY PUNISHMENT.”
U.S. District Judge Michael Ponsor did not grant Welch’s request. But when he sentenced Carrano, the judge remarked he was astonished by the “brazenness” of the crime.
AP-ES-07-25-06 1812EDT
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