Criminal Charges Filed In Charter School Investigation

June 20, 2017

The owners of a company that managed public charter schools in Escambia and several other Florida counties are facing charges for racketeering and organized wire fraud.

According to court documents, the Newpoint fraudulent billing scheme was instigated by Marcus May, the owner of Newpoint, and  aided by Steven Kunkemoeller, the owner of School Warehouse, Inc. and Red Ignition, Inc. The scheme allegedly involved Newpoint-managed charter schools not only in Escambia County but also in Bay, Broward, Duval, Hillsborough, Holmes, and Pinellas counties.
Court filings allege that as a result of the various schemes May obtained more than $1 million of public funds from a pattern of thefts from the State Department of Education, six school districts, and 15 Newpoint-managed charter schools. The
filings also allege that May used proceeds of the schemes to establish or operate multiple Florida and Ohio limited liability companies, which he used to acquire residential and business properties in both states.

The cases stemmed from an investigation by the Office of State Attorney, First Judicial Circuit and the Escambia County School District of complaints about grade tampering, teacher misconduct, and financial improprieties at Newpoint-managed charter schools in Escambia County. According to court filings, the financial improprieties involved use of public funds in a fraudulent billing scheme by Newpoint in which Newpoint used related vendors to submit excessive, false, and/or fictitious invoices for furniture, equipment, computers, and services.

Comments

4 Responses to “Criminal Charges Filed In Charter School Investigation”

  1. Beegee on June 21st, 2017 1:29 pm

    Not all Charter schools are fraud…..know a good one myself….worked there and all was up and up`…..thank you!!

  2. David Huie Green on June 20th, 2017 12:40 pm

    Catching crooks should inspire confidence. Instead, it results in the suspicion that everybody is a crook. Confidence would be improved if regular monitoring existed, but it seems folks don’t check unless something egregious is noticed first.

    David for trust inspired by verifying
    (including reasonable testing)

  3. anne 1of2 on June 20th, 2017 11:54 am

    This has happened in so many cities I m mazed they haven’t changed the word “charter” to “fraud” education.

  4. Kate on June 20th, 2017 6:27 am

    Oh yes, give me charter schools, so much better than public education. We can fatten the wallets of the crooks and fail to educate our youth. What a deal.

Written by William Reynolds · Filed Under News