By Shams Tarek

School District 29’s former superintendent, her husband, the landlord of the school board’s headquarters, his former lawyer and a computer consultant all pleaded guilty last week to taking part in a scheme filled with bribes, kickbacks and computer contract rigging totaling $6.3 million that left Southeast Queens school children with substandard computers.

All involved will have to pay back a total of $4.85 million of the money they pleaded guilty to pocketing.

The owner of the building that houses the school district offices will still collect rent.

None will serve time in jail.

Former District 29 Superintendent Celestine Miller smiled as she withdrew her original plea of ‘not guilty’ and admitted to the charges of “scheming to defraud in the first degree, offering a false instrument for filing in the first degree and receiving unlawful gratuities” at Queens Criminal Court in Kew Gardens on Oct. 18.

Miller and her husband, co-defendant William Harris, pleaded guilty to receiving $925,000 in the form of a house in Springfield Gardens, four phony mortgages, personal checks, paid credit card bills and some cash in a brown paper bag in the scheme, according to investigators.

Miller and Harris paid the City $102,000 on Oct. 18 — the rest of the money was recuperated by the City when Miller returned the house and four mortgages she received, according to court documents.

  Miller smiled for much of her day in court, and was witnessed laughing and tapping her fingers during the almost six hours of waiting to appear before Judge John LaTella.

Miller appeared amiable and willing to engage in small talk, and told a PRESS reporter that her health has been better, and that she can’t comment on her successor, Superintendent Michael Johnson, because “I don’t know him.” 

Harris and Miller’s attorney Charles Simpson stood between Miller and reporters in an apparent effort to keep her from interacting with members of the media outside the courtroom.

Thomas Kontogiannis, the real estate mogul who owns the building that is home to School District 29’s headquarters pleaded guilty to receiving $2.3 million in school contract money along with attorney and computer consultant Ray Shain.

Kontogiannis withdrew his original plea of not guilty and admitted to “scheming to defraud in the second degree, giving unlawful gratuities and attempted violation” of a New York State antitrust law called the Donnelly Act, according to court records.

Defense attorney Ira Cooper (left) with defendant William Harris at the Queens Criminal Court on Oct. 18. PRESS Photo By Ira Cohen

Kontogiannis, who wrote a restitution check for $800,000 to the City earlier in the day, has to pay another $3.35 million within the next six years, according to District Attorney spokesman Patrick Clark.

Outside the courtroom he had a swagger and candidness unlike any of his co-defendants.

Kontogiannis joked with two school investigators in the hallway outside the courtroom, talking about how he could be golfing at the moment and told a PRESS  reporter, “These are the guys who put me in jail on my 52nd birthday”

Kontogiannis said outside the courtroom before officially entering his guilty plea, “It shouldn’t have taken so long.  People should’ve just pled guilty, paid a fine, everybody would just lick their wounds and go home.”

The money Kontogiannis has to pay back is being secured by a mortgage on One Cross Island Plaza, the Rosedale office building he owns that leases space to Community School Board 29, Clark said.

Clark added, that the building “is worth a lot more than what he’ll have to pay back” and that Kontogiannis is “not likely to lose it.”

Investigators in the case said that with the city’s current fiscal crisis, the School Board isn’t likely to move to another building.

Calls to Johnson about the matter have gone unreturned.

Nathaniel Washington, president of Community School Board 29, said he thinks that justice has been served in the case.

“I’m just relieved that it’s over,” Washington said.  “I’m glad that the funds will be restored.  The attention now can be put on District 29 educationally.  We had to live with this cloud over our head for the last three years.”

Kinson Tso, the 36-year-old Dix Hills owner of Business Innovative Technologies (BIT)  which got $6.3 million in three contracts to provide District 29 schools with new computers, paid $400,000 to the City before entering a plea of guilty in court. 

The five defendants, charged along with five companies they control, are scheduled for sentencing on Dec. 4. 

Calls to all the defendants and their lawyers for comments on the case have gone unreturned, except for Miller.

The $4.85 million the defendants are giving back to the City, according to Department of Education spokesman Kevin Ortiz, will be put back into schools. 

Ortiz said it’s “too early to say, though,” where or how that money will be spent.

“When you’re getting back nearly $5 million which can be given back to the children, you’re making a significant consideration,” Clark said after the hearing. “The certainty of restitution outweighed the uncertainty of going to trial and proving all the charges beyond a reasonable doubt for all defendants.”

Miller called the PRESS after the hearing to comment.

Miller spoke at length, at times referring to herself in the third person, citing her “37 years of illustrious service,” including eight years as a local principal, 13 years as an assistant principal and more than 10 years as a public school teacher.

“I think that my character speaks for itself and that everyone who understands the system understands the character, the stature, of Celestine Miller,” she said.  “I’m extraordinarily comfortable about Celestine Miller, the professional woman of character and stature.

“I don’t know what the future holds, but I’m a perennial optimist.  I’ve always felt good about myself, and my peers.  I’ve enjoyed the educational journey.  It was stupendous.”

“To the children of Southeast Queens, I say, reach for the stars. Never lose your dreams, hopes and aspirations to become all that you can become,” she said. She refused to comment on the case, arguing that her sentencing is pending.

District Attorney Richard Brown said, “The defendants’ fraudulent scheme victimized the children of Southeast Queens who lost critically-needed classroom resources as a result of the defendants’ greed and corruption. This settlement will assist those children in achieving educational excellence in a school district and a school system committed to their success.”

Schools chancellor Joel Klein could not be reached for comment but did say in a released statement, “I would like to thank District Attorney Brown and Corporation Counsel Cardozo for securing the nearly $5 million in restitution that will be put back into the classroom in order to ensure the children in District 29 have the resources that they were so callously derived of by these reprehensible actions.”

Executive Vice President of the Southeast Queens Clergy for Political Awareness, Rev. Charles Norris,  suggested that Miller was a target to a plot to “bring her down.” He maintained his support after last week’s settlement. “I still have a lot of respect for Celestine Miller,” Norris said.  “I’m glad she accepted the agreement.  I think it’s good to do that and get finished with this thing and get on with her life.  I think whatever sins have been committed, I would trust that she has asked for forgiveness from God.”

State Assemblywoman Barbara Clark, who said she has followed the case closely,  was not happy about the settlement, and wished for a trial and more punishment.

“I think they should’ve been convicted, because you don’t steal from kids, Clark said. “People who commit crimes should be penalized for them. That’s a horror story, that people would get together and defraud kids out of their computers.”