November 14, 2005

DILLON ANNOUNCES:

ROSLYN SCHOOL DISTRICT AUDITOR
PLEADS GUILTY TO TOP COUNT

Nassau County District Attorney Denis Dillon announced today that Andrew Miller, 56, of 50 Jefferson Landing Circle, Port Jefferson, pled guilty to the top count of Tampering with Public Records in the First Degree, a Class D Felony. Miller was indicted by a Grand Jury and arrested by the DA’s Special Investigations Bureau in September of 2005 in connection with the Roslyn School District Financial Scandal. Miller is a former Partner of Miller, Lilly & Pearce, LLP, Certified Public Accountants, and was the audit partner for the Roslyn Union Free School District.

According to Dillon, "On February 11, 2004 my office opened an investigation into the Roslyn School District. On February 23, 2004, Frank Tassone (58, of 160 E. 88th Street, Manhattan) became aware of my office’s active investigation into the Roslyn School District. It was at that point that Tassone contacted Andrew Miller, from Miller, Lilly & Pearce and asked for his assistance in ‘cleaning up’ the school districts financial records. On the evening of February 25, 2004 Miller went to the Roslyn School District’s Accounting Department and changed the names of fifteen (15) vendors on the District’s computer system. Miller substituted the names of legitimate Roslyn School District vendors to replace the names of the actual financial institutions paid by the district. The actual financial institutions were paid for the various personal expenses of Tassone, Pamela Gluckin (former Assistant Superintendent, 59, of 2850 Lee Place, Bellmore) and Debra Rigano (former Account Clerk, 46, of 227 Jensen Avenue, Mamaroneck, New York). For example, Chase Bank was changed to EDC Publishing; Citibank became Nassau County BOCES; MBNA was changed to MacMillen Publishing; American Express became Sargent-Welch, and First USA was changed to Fischer Educational."

"Miller was familiar with the Roslyn School District computer software, which was created by a company called Finance Manager, of which Miller was a founder and a 45% stockholder," said Dillon.

"As a consequence of changing these names, any records that were generated from the Roslyn School District computer system from that point forward would show the false names instead of the actual parties to whom the payments had been made, even if they contained historical information appearing to predate the changes," said Dillon.

On March 23, 2004, Miller provided the DA’s office with eight (8) false documents which were generated from the Roslyn School District computer system after the vendors’ names had been changed. There were three (3) Roslyn School District Cash Disbursements Listings for the following periods: 7/1/00-6/30/01; 7/1/01-6/30/02; 7/1/02-10/16/02. The cash disbursement listings were also falsified to indicate that they had been printed on October 16, 2002, which was long before any of the vendors’ names had been changed on the computer system. That was the date on which Andrew Miller and his staff ‘audited’ Pamela Gluckin’s expenses immediately prior to her termination and concluded that she had stolen only $250,000.

Miller also gave the DA’s office what purported to be historical Miller, Lilly & Pearce, LLP documents relating to Roslyn School District audit work, but which reflected the February 25, 2004 alterations. There were three (3) Miller, Lilly & Pearce Judgmental Expenditure Testing documents for the fiscal years ending 6/30/01, 6/30/02 and 6/30/03; and two (2) Miller, Lilly, & Pearce Statistical Sample Over $25,000 records for the fiscal years ending 6/30/01 and 6/30/02.

During the summer of 2004, the New York State Comptroller Alan Hevesi conducted an audit of Miller, Lilly, & Pearce’s services to the Roslyn School District. On August 18, 2004, Miller provided Hevesi’s office with three (3) similar false documents. He gave them a Judgmental Expenditure Testing document for the fiscal year ending 6/30/02, which also omitted certain entries in the supposedly identical document that he had given to the DA’s office. He also gave them a Judgmental Expenditure Testing document for the fiscal year ending 6/30/03 that was identical to the false one that he gave to the DA’s Office. Lastly, he gave them a Statistical Sample for the fiscal year ending 6/30/03 that purported to be the same as one he had given the DA’s Office, but that in fact omitted two (2) true entries that had been falsified in the version the DA’s Office received.

Miller will be sentenced by Nassau County Court Judge Alan Honorof on January 11, 2005.