{"id":315279,"date":"2026-08-06T16:02:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T16:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/315279\/"},"modified":"2026-08-06T16:02:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T16:02:08","slug":"yonkers-married-couple-sentenced-for-defrauding-nyc-deptartment-of-education-out-of-170000","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/315279\/","title":{"rendered":"Yonkers Married Couple Sentenced for Defrauding NYC Deptartment of Education out of $170,000"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"634\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/NYC_DOE_Logo-1024x634.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-59013\" style=\"width:629px;height:auto\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark today announced that a married Yonkers couple were sentenced for their roles in a fraudulent scheme that netted them and a co-conspirator more than $170,000 in illicit proceeds from the New York City Department of Education. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">District Attorney Clark said, \u201cThe female defendant, a longtime employee with the New York City Department of Education used her position to falsify purchase orders. She engaged her husband and a friend in this crime of greed that stole more than $170,000, money that should<br \/>have been used for the education of our schoolchildren. I would like to thank our law enforcement partners at SCI who worked with our Financial Frauds Bureau in this investigation.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">District Attorney Clark said defendant Rusnelly Clase, 42, was today sentenced to six months in prison with five years\u2019 post-release supervision and defendant Justin Echevarria, 38, was today sentenced to five years\u2019 probation before Bronx Supreme Court Justice Steven<br \/>Horsntein. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The pair pleaded guilty to fourth degree Corrupting the Government on April 9, 2026. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">To date Clase has paid $50,000 in restitution. She\u2019s been ordered to pay an additional $36, 654.88. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Echevarria was also ordered to pay $47,448.63. <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Special Commissioner Anastasia Anastasia Coleman said, \u201cThe New York City public school system is not a personal piggy bank. Every dollar stolen from our schools is a dollar taken away from New York City\u2019s students. SCI will continue holding accountable anyone who exploits<br \/>their public position and misuses resources that belong in our classrooms. We like to thank the DA\u2019s Financial Frauds Bureau for working closely with our investigators on this important matter.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">According to the investigation, 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\u2019s procurement and accounting systems to register her husband and another co-conspirator<br \/>as non-contracted vendors with the New York City Department of Education.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Clase filed a substantial number of 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<br \/>her husband and $75,000 in fraudulent payments to the other co-conspirator, both of whom \u201ckicked back\u201d some of the illicit proceeds to Clase. No items were ever delivered. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bronx District Attorney Darcel D. Clark today announced that a married Yonkers couple were sentenced for their roles&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":315280,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[128,9,24,63,129,131,130],"class_list":["post-315279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-the-bronx","tag-bronx","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-the-bronx","tag-the-bronx-headlines","tag-the-bronx-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/315279\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/315280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=315279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=315279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}