Westchester Husband And Wife Embezzled $170K From NYC Schools

YONKERS, NY — A Westchester couple are facing justice in an embezzlement scheme that siphoned money intended for school children in New York City.

Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark said the married Yonkers couple have now been sentenced for their roles in the fraudulent scheme that netted them and a co-conspirator more than $170,000 in illicit proceeds from the New York City Department of Education.

"The female defendant, a longtime employee with the New
York City Department of Education used her position to falsify purchase orders," District Attorney Clark said. "She engaged her husband and a friend in this crime of greed that stole more than $170,000, money that should have been used for the education of our schoolchildren."

Clark said Rusnelly Clase, 42, was sentenced to six
months in prison with five years’ post-release supervision. Her husband, Justin Echevarria, 38, was sentenced to five years’ probation.

The pair pleaded guilty to corrupting the government in April.

To date Clase has paid $50,000 in restitution. She’s been ordered to pay an additional $36, 654.88. Echevarria was also ordered to pay $47,448.63.

"The New York City public school system is not a personal piggy bank," Special Commissioner Anastasia Coleman said. "Every dollar stolen from our schools is a dollar taken
away from New York City’s students. SCI will continue holding accountable anyone who exploits their public position and misuses resources that belong in our classrooms."

From 2018 through February of 2022, Clase, a community coordinator with Middle School 302 in Longwood for over ten years, used her access to the school’s procurement and accounting systems to register her husband and another co-conspirator as non-contracted vendors with the New York City Department of Education.

Clase then filed fraudulent vendor invoices, along with falsified purchase orders for clothing such as sweatshirts, shorts, t-shirts, and jackets. Clase then used unauthorized access to approve the invoices and trigger over $90,000 in fraudulent payments to her husband and $75,000 in fraudulent payments to the other co-conspirator, both of whom kicked back some of the proceeds to Clase. No items were ever delivered.