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Jurors in Paterson also found Anna N. Taliaferro, formerly of Paterson and currently of Virginia Beach, guilty of fraudulently overbilling the district by more than $190,000.
The guilty verdicts on all counts followed a three-month trial stemming from a Dec. 13, 2010 indictment.
Before retiring five years ago, Taliaferro was the district-wide coordinator of the Paterson Resource Center. Her duties included organizing and managing programs for Paterson parents, including annual taxpayer-funded conferences that focused on teaching participants parenting skills, Hoffman said.
At the same time, she was also was the president of a nonprofit corporation, New Jersey Association of Parent Coordinators, to which she “outsourced” the task of organizing annual conferences for Paterson parents to NJAPC, while submitting annual ethics disclosure statements falsely certifying that she did not have any financial interest in any entity contracted by the Paterson Board of Education, jurors found.
In doing so, prosecutors said, Taliaferro created the false impression that NJAPC was an independent corporation.
Prosecutors presented testimony and evidence at trial that Taliaferro unlawfully ran the nonprofit on district time using Paterson School District employees and resources.
“She, in effect, charged the district through NJAPC for doing what the district was already paying her to do as coordinator of the Paterson Resource Center,” said state Acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman.
“She misused school resources and defrauded this Abbott district of taxpayer funds intended for programs geared toward fostering responsible parenting,” Hoffman said. “This was a flagrant breach of public trust.”
He said she also fraudulently overbilled the Paterson School District through NJAPC by:
- charging it for unauthorized items and services;
- overbilling for incidental expenses of conference participants, such as telephone charges;
- and failing to reimburse the district when NJAPC received large reductions in food bills at hotels where conferences were held, after the district had paid the original bills in full.
Sentencing was scheduled for March 14.
New Jersey Deputy Attorney General Veronica Allende tried the case for the state Division of Criminal Justice Corruption Bureau.
The investigation was conducted by Sgt. Warren Monroe, Sgt. James Scott, Sgt. Thomas Culp, Detective Robyn Greene, Analyst Kathleen Ratliff and retired Deputy Attorney General Richard Queen of the DCJ after the matter was referred by the state Department of Education, Hoffman said.
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