Nick Trombetta, founder of the nation’s first cybercharter, will be sentenced on July 10.
He admitted stealing $8 million in public funds intended for his school.
The long-delayed sentencing hearing of former Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School CEO Nick Trombetta on charges of tax fraud and conspiracy is set for July, according to information filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court.
The July 10 sentencing will come nearly five years after Trombetta, 62, was indicted by a grand jury on 11 counts of tax fraud and conspiracy in August 2013. He pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the IRS in August 2016.
He faces up to five years in federal prison.
Trombetta siphoned $8 million from the Midland-based public school and used the money to stockpile retirement money and buy personal luxury goods for himself, his girlfriend and his family — including multiple homes and a twin-engine airplane.
The conspiracy involved Trombetta and several others – including his accountant, Neal Prence – moving the money to other companies created or controlled by Trombetta and filing false tax returns.
He had this great idea. Give a computer and distance instruction to students who enrolled. Collect full state tuition. He collected $10,000 per student and had 10,000 students. He was rolling in dough. $100 million. It is easy to let that kind of money go to your head or your bank account.
There are virtual charter schools operating across the country that are raking in lots of money that they don’t need or deserve. What should they do with it?
If every charter operator who used his school’s credit card as his personal piggy bank were put into jail, the jails would be overcrowded. If they happened to be privatized prisons, the charter industry would turn against privatization and demand decent public prisons.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Pennsylvania is under-appreciated as an ed reform disaster:
“But cyber charters are not under the jurisdiction of any local district. Because they can accept students from all over the state, they are overseen by the Pennsylvania Department of Education. One enrolls nearly 10,000 students, making it larger than most school districts.
Even though districts have no control over the cybers, they are required to pay the per-pupil price to the cyber school for students residing in their district.
Cyber charters receive the same per-pupil amount from districts as brick-and-mortar charters, making them no less expensive for the districts.
And because school districts throughout the state have different per-pupil costs, the cyber schools can get anywhere from $6,000 to almost $20,000 from a student’s local school district, although all the students have the same educational program.”
Ohio and Michigan get all the attention, but in many ways PA is worse.
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Chiara: your comments illustrate the stunning gap between rheephorm Reality and rheephorm Rheeality.
One of the snappiest cliché selling points for those hawking charters is that they “do more with less.”
Forget about the “more” for a moment. How in the world is this “less”?
🙄
It needs to be reworded: “we cost as much but do much less.”
In the spirit of truth-in-advertising…
😎
P.S. Or perhaps, considering how they are literally sucking needed resources out of the public schools, their mantra should read: “we do great harm for very little good.”
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If charter schools are going to remain, then it’s time to re-examine why they are allowed to be cloaked and relatively free from government oversight. I don’t buy the argument that they need that to try to methods. Time to say goodby to no oversight.
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“In August, Trombetta — indicted by a grand jury on 11 counts of tax fraud and conspiracy charges in 2013 — pleaded guilty to conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service from collecting income taxes.”
Trombetta was charged with tax fraud under federal law.
Is the state of Pennsylvania every going to charge him with stealing millions and millions of dollars from the charter school?
Is that legal now?
His school is still open. Has anyone got around to regulating it or do we have to wait for tax fraud charges again?
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Another cybercharter operator in Penn was charged with stealing millions in Pennsylvania. She ran the K12 Inc Agora school. She too stole millions, but she was freed because she was 76 so she gets to keep the millions she stole and no jail time. She got a Get Out of Jail free card.
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He raked in $100 million but is only being charged with stealing $8 million?
Something does not jibe here.
This fellow is going to spend a year (tops) behind bars, get out on good behavior and then jet off to some private island where he will spend the rest of his life sitting on the beach, sipping margaritas and otherwise enjoying the tens of millions he smartly stashed in Swiss bank accounts.
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5 measly years for stealing that much money? Dang….poor people get more time for stealing a lot less AND they have to do their time in the crappy state pen. This guy stole from children and that is just deplorable.
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“Texas woman sentenced to 5 years in prison for voting while on probation”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2018/03/30/texas-woman-sentenced-to-5-years-in-prison-for-voting-while-on-probation/?utm_term=.5ae70197ba68
It’s called “Voting while black” (in Texas, at least)
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Pennsylvania’s charter mismanagement has caused the commonwealth to drop to an A+ rating on the S&P system in 2017. Pennsylvania has not recovered from the negligence of the Corbett administration which Pennsylvania became a favorite of grifters looking to profit from “free money” with few strings attached. Today Pennsylvania is still struggling as the charter lobby continues to rule the legislature.
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Correction: where Pennsylvania became
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