EPISD CHEATING

5 educators arrested in EPISD scheme

Former Austin High School principal, 3 former assistant principals among those arrested Wednesday

Aaron Martinez and Lindsey Anderson
El Paso Times
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Former El Paso Independent School District Associate Superintendent and former Canutillo ISD Superintendent Damon Murphy is led to the El Paso County Jail after surrendering to the FBI in connection with the EPISD cheating scandal.

Five El Paso educators have been charged with scheming to defraud the federal accountability system and, in some cases, retaliating against co-workers who cooperated with the FBI's 5½ year investigation of the city's largest school district.

One of the administrators arrested was a former El Paso Independent School District associate superintendent, while the other four worked at Austin High School.

“These newly charged EPISD administrators engaged in criminal conduct and brazen efforts to manipulate testing populations, graduation rates, and attendance figures,” FBI El Paso Division Special Agent in Charge Douglas E. Lindquist said in a statement. “The message should be loud and clear that the FBI, American people, and citizens of El Paso will not tolerate the manipulation and corruption of our public educational system.

“The involved teachers and administrators were trusted with educating and looking out for the best interests of students, as opposed to spending countless hours scheming and devising ways to defraud educational standards.”

The five educators charged with various counts of fraud and retaliation are former EPISD Associate Superintendent Damon Murphy, former Austin High School Principal John Tanner, and former Austin Assistant Principals Diane Thomas, Mark Tegmeyer and Nancy Love.

Murphy, Tanner and Tegmeyer were charged with one count each of conspiracy to defraud the United States, conspiracy to commit mail fraud, and substantive mail fraud. They face possible 20-year prison sentences if convicted.

Tanner, Tegmeyer, Thomas and Love were charged with conspiracy to retaliate against a witness, which carries a possible 10-year prison term.

Love is facing an additional charge of making a false declaration before a grand jury, which has a maximum punishment of five years in prison.

A copy of the indictment filed against the five suspects was not available Wednesday. The five made their initial appearance before U.S. Magistrate Judge Miguel A. Torres, who set bond for Murphy, Tanner, Tegmeyer and Love, at $30,000, while the bond for Thomas was set at $20,000.

All the defendants were told not to have any contact with their co-defendants, potential witnesses or any of the victims, although one exception was made for Love. Torres allowed Love to continue to talk to her son, Richard Allen Love, who court officials said is cooperating with the FBI’s investigation. She was ordered not to discuss the ongoing case.

A news release from the U.S. Attorney's Office said Murphy is accused of giving "marching orders" to Tanner and other principals to create false data for the federal school accountability measure known as adequate yearly progress, or AYP.

"The indictment alleges that fraudulent misrepresentations regarding EPISD's AYP were submitted to the Texas Education Agency and the (U.S. Department of Education) in order to make it appear as though EPISD was meeting and exceeding AYP standards," the release states.

Tanner and Tegmeyer allegedly conspired to alter student attendance rate data, according to the news release. Student attendance was one of the key performance measures tracked under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

"The indictment also alleges that throughout the 2009-2010 school year, Tanner, assisted by Tegmeyer, directed an AHS administrator to change previously properly marked absences of students to make it appear as if the student were present on days designated by the state to measure attendance rates," the news release says. "Tanner’s action resulted in approximately 11,000 fraudulent entries regarding absences of AHS students. The indictment further alleges that in the 2010/2011 school year, Tegmeyer instructed an AHS employee to withdraw students from the school without the students’ parents’ consent or notification to benefit EPISD’s compliance requirements."

As the FBI investigated cheating and fraud allegations, Tanner and three assistant principals allegedly targeted two teachers who had been cooperating with law enforcement.

"The indictment also alleges that Tanner, Tegmeyer, Thomas and Love conspired with each other to harm the personal and professional reputations of two EPISD teachers for providing truthful information to FBI agents," according to the news release. "The alleged purposes of their scheme included the termination of both teachers’ EPISD employment as well as any future employment; and, coaching a former student into falsely pressing criminal charges against one of the instructors.

"Love is alleged to have made a false statement during a grand jury proceeding on September 26, 2013. According to the indictment, Love told the grand jury that the former student sought her out for advice and help with pressing charges against the teacher, when in fact, it was Love who approached a relative of the former student to make contact and convince the student to press charges against the teacher."

Earlier investigations

Love, 48, and Tegmeyer, 51, are the only defendants currently working in El Paso County schools. Love is an assistant principal at Maxine Silva Health Magnet High School and Tegmeyer is an assistant principal at Horizon Middle School in the Clint Independent School District.

Tegmeyer was placed on administrative leave on Monday after Clint school officials were notified of his indictment, district officials said in a statement.

Love’s employment status was not immediately available Wednesday.

Murphy, 50, and Tanner, 52, have long maintained their innocence.

“They (the FBI) are trying to manufacture a situation that didn't occur," Murphy said in 2011 interview with the El Paso Times. "They really are and it has all of our careers on the line."

Tanner survived an initial attempt to fire him in 2013, but the EPISD Board of Managers fired him and Thomas, now 53, in 2014.

An independent hearing examiner  found evidence that Thomas, an Austin employee for 10 years and an assistant principal for two years, directed staff members to falsify enrollment data to have two teachers' positions "surplused."

The two teachers were frequently discussed on campus as probable witnesses for internal and FBI investigations of the EPISD, the report said.

"An inference against Thomas that she was in a conspiracy with Tanner regarding (an auto shop teacher) can be made," the hearing examiner's report said.

In FBI custody

The five suspects were walked by FBI agents Wednesday morning from the old federal courthouse, which houses federal pretrial services, to the nearby El Paso County Jail. Most stayed silent during the walk, but Murphy and Tanner made brief comments to the media.

“I just wish everyone well in El Paso and we will get through this," said Murphy, who resigned as Canutillo Independent School District superintendent in 2012 as the school board prepared to fire him.

Tanner said, “I can’t wait until I am able to (discuss the arrest), but I can’t right now.”

FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Keith Byers said the agency is still investigating the alleged cheating and fraud scheme, but declined to discuss how many more people are under investigation.

“At this point and time, I am not going to provide a number,” Byers said. “As you all saw today, five people were charged and indicted. Two people previously have been charged and convicted. What I’ll say again is that this is an ongoing investigation and not yet final.”

Former Austin High School Assistant Principal Diane Thomas is led to the El Paso County Jail after surrendering to the FBI in connection with the EPISD cheating scandal.

Previous charges

Two other former EPISD administrators had been previously charged in the cheating scheme, which sought to falsely boost EPISD's accountability scores by a variety of means, including preventing "limited English proficiency" students from taking the state standardized high school test.

The accountability fraud was first detailed in a series of 2012 stories in the El Paso Times.

Some students were wrongfully held back or promoted so they wouldn't take the state test in 10th grade, artificially inflating the EPISD's scores to meet federal accountability standards, according to the Times investigation. Other students were discouraged from enrolling in school or were denied admittance outright.

The goal was to prevent some students from taking the accountability test used by Texas to measure progress under the federal No Child Left Behind law.

The FBI has been investigating the cheating scheme allegations since December 2010. Until Wednesday, only former EPISD Superintendent Lorenzo García and Priority Schools Division administrator Myrna Gamboa had been charged as a result of the investigation.

Bowie High School counselor Patricia Scott discovered in summer 2009 that 77 sophomore transcripts had been altered. She showed them to a supervisor, and later to García.

The EPISD launched an internal audit that verified that the transcripts had been altered, but officials didn't make it public and denied wrongdoing. Former state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh, D-El Paso, was often the only public official to question the EPISD's test scores, alleging the district had cheated.

The Times uncovered the audit in April 2012 through an open records request that the district initially tried to block.

Nancy Love, current assistant principal at Maxine Silva Health Magnet High School and former assistant principal at Austin High School, is led to the El Paso County Jail early Wednesday morning after surrendering to the FBI in connection with the El Paso Independent School District cheating scandal.

García ultimately pleaded guilty in June 2012 to two counts of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud for cheating on test scores and for a $450,000 no-bid contract given to his mistress.

He was sentenced to 3½ years in prison in 2012, although his sentence was later shortened because he participated in an alcohol and drug counseling program. He was released from federal custody on Oct. 31, 2014.

Gamboa pleaded guilty to conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government in October 2014. She was sentenced to five years' probation in January 2015.

Gamboa's charging document listed Murphy and former EPISD Assistant Superintendent James Anderson as co-conspirators in the cheating scheme. Anderson has not been charged with any crime. He resigned in April 2013.

Murphy oversaw the EPISD's Priority Schools Division, which included the district's lowest-performing schools. He was named superintendent in Canutillo in 2010, and resigned in December 2012 after an internal investigation found evidence of similar cheating in Canutillo.

The Texas Education Agency also continues to investigate some administrators linked to the scheme, evaluating whether to strip them of their educator licenses.

The state in 2014 filed an action to strip a number of EPISD administrators of their education credentials, including Murphy, Anderson, former interim Superintendent Terri Jordan, former Priority Schools Division administrators Maria Flores and Gamboa, former director of guidance services Kathleen Ortega, former Bowie Principal Jesus Chavez, former Bowie Assistant Principals Anna Luisa Kell and Johnnie Vega, former director of bilingual education Norma Regina "Gina" Oaxaca and current Burges High School Assistant Principal Juan Manuel Duran, who was previously an assistant principal at Bowie.

The TEA later added Priscilla Terrazas, a former Priority Schools Division director, and Vanessa Foreman, former Title I schools director, to the list.

Former Austin High School Principal John Tanner is led to the El Paso County Jail after surrendering to the FBI in connection with the El Paso Independent School District cheating scandal.

Only Duran still works for the district.

So far, Gamboa, Jordan, Murphy and Vega have voluntarily surrendered their educator certifications. Ortega and the State Board for Educator Certification agreed to an inscribed reprimand, meaning she is still certified but the reprimand will appear on her certificate.

A public hearing will be held regarding several educators' credentials this summer.

Moving forward

EPISD's current leadership, which was put in place well after the alleged scheme to defraud accountability measures, said the charges can help the district move forward.

"Today's actions by the FBI further places EPISD on a path to recovery after years of uncertainty. We have and continue to work with the authorities to make sure that any wrongdoing that happened within the District is made right," Superintendent Juan Cabrera said in a statement. "I want to reassure parents that the EPISD of today is a district where ethics and strong moral character are the driving force toward student success. We will not stand for anything else than that, and anyone who is unwilling to follow these standards does not belong anywhere near our children."

School board President Dori Fenenbock said: "EPISD has worked hard to mend its relationship with the students, parents and taxpayers of the district. The actions today by the FBI allow us to further put this incident behind us. But it also allows us continue to have conversations amongst one another and with the public about how we can best deal with our unfortunate recent history. We will continue the great work our current administration and school staff are doing to improve student achievement in an ethical and appropriate manner."

Aaron Martinez may be reached at 546-6249; aamartinez@elpasotimes.com; @AMartinez31. Lindsey Anderson may be reached at 546-6345; landerson@elpasotimes.com; @l_m_anderson on Twitter.

Online: Read past reports at elpasotimes.com

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