Brooklyn ACORN Community Organizer Accused of Fraud

After we noted the dubious ACORN HS for Social Justice yesterday you just had to know there were more layers to peel back to uncover some fraud involved. Sure enough today we discover a community organizer involved with ACORN, the New York City Department of Education and the ACORN HS for Social Justice is being accused of fraud.

ACORN and fraud: Perfect together.

The free corporate rewards gifts arrived by the dozens: $5,000 IBM gift certificates, $500 travel coupons, Broadway show tickets, tickets to Mets and Yankees games. The only problem was that, according to city schools investigators, it was all based on a scam.

Investigators on Tuesday alleged that a Brooklyn-based bookkeeper and community organizer for the beleaguered anti-poverty group Acorn improperly netted $500,000 in merchandise for a corporate rewards program with Verizon, the telephone company, through a complex scam that went on for more than four years.

“She left no stone unturned,” said Richard J. Condon, the special commissioner of investigations for the city’s schools.

Investigators said the fraud began in 2004, when the woman, Donnett Davis, was working at the financial desk at a Brooklyn office of Acorn. She opened a corporate rewards program for Acorn’s 10 to 20 phone lines with Verizon, but put her name as the recipient in order to get the rewards herself, she told investigators, according to a report submitted to Joel I. Klein, the schools chancellor, on Tuesday.

Shortly afterward, investigators allege, Ms. Davis added about 9,000 Department of Education phone lines to her rewards account. With millions of dollars in billings, the trickle of reward points became a roaring torrent of gift certificates, L.L. Bean merchandise and other freebies, investigators said.

It is not known how Ms. Davis got access to the Department of Education numbers, but Mr. Cordon said he suspects she may have had help from someone within the department or Verizon. “We’re not alleging she did it alone,” Mr. Cordon said. “Quite frankly we would be surprised if she did.”

New York Acorn terminated Ms. Davis’s employment in April 2008, Arthur Schwartz, counsel for Acorn, said Tuesday. Shortly afterward, Ms. Davis went to work directly for the Department of Education, as the parent coordinator for an Acorn-affiliated school, the Acorn High School for Social Justice in Brooklyn.

There, the scam continued until Verizon discovered the suspicious activity in October 2008 while auditing its accounts, and the Department of Education began an investigation. Ms. Davis resigned from her schools job in August, the letter to Mr. Klein said. The matter has been referred to prosecutors.

H/T Big Government.

How is it someone can be terminated from ACORN and then go directly to work for the DoE? Isn't there any vetting? Or did she have cushy union connections that allowed her to glide right in?

Now despite Klein's assertion she was dismissed in August, Davis is still listed as a parent coordinator at the School for Social Justice. There has not been a reply to an email inquiry to that address.

Meanwhile the attorney for Davis responded.

Davis's attorney Scott Cerbin downplayed the accusations. "As of this time, I'm not aware of any criminal charges," he said.

'Intifada NYC' Principal Sues NYC

Gee, never saw this coming.

The founding principal of the city’s first Arabic-language school has filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court against the city’s Education Department, Chancellor Joel I. Klein and Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, claiming that they violated her right to free speech and “conspired to deny her the opportunity to regain her position as principal” of the Khalil Gibran International Academy, in Brooklyn. The principal, Debbie Almontaser, resigned under pressure this summer, following a furor that erupted after she was quoted in The New York Post defending the use of the word “intifada” on a T-shirt sold by a Brooklyn-based organization of Arab women. Last month, Ms. Almontaser said she was a victim of a smear campaign by conservatives and would apply to get her job back. But Education Department officials said they would not consider her application among the 25 others that were submitted at the time.

Waaaah!

Previous items on this fraud here.

Jewish Principal Takes Over at Arabic School

The farce surrounding the Khalil Gibran International Academy in Brooklyn took a bizarre turn Monday as a Jewish educator named Danielle Salzberg has been appointed interim principal while ousted principal Debbie Almontaser remains defiant, complaining of religious bigotry as the reason for her ouster, rather than her support of the group which produced the odious "Intifada NYC" t-shirts.

NEW PRINCIPAL 'CHOSEN'

A Jewish educator who can't utter a phrase of Arabic has been tapped to head the city's controversial Arabic-themed school, officials announced yesterday.

In a shocking move, the Department of Education named Danielle Salzberg interim acting principal of the Khalil Gibran International Academy in Brooklyn. Salzberg will replace Debbie Almontaser, who resigned under pressure last Friday because of her remarks to The Post defending "Intifada NYC" T-shirts.

Before her appointment, Salzberg was a senior program officer with the nonprofit New Visions for Public Schools, which is partially funding the academy. In that role, Salzberg worked with Almontaser and the school's six teachers to develop its specialized curriculum of Arabic language and culture.

Previously, Salzberg helped launch the new Baruch HS, where she was an English teacher, and Millennium HS, where she was assistant principal until March. She first started teaching at city schools in December 1996.

Salzberg, 35, is not an Arabic speaker, said Department of Education spokeswoman Debra Wexler. A source with direct knowledge confirmed that Salzberg is Jewish but did not have details on how observant she is.

Meanwhile, Almontaser said her own religion, Islam, not her failure to condemn the "Intifada NYC" T-shirts, led to the ouster, according to her resignation letter obtained by The Post.

"Unfortunately, a small group of highly misguided individuals has launched a relentless attack on me because of my religion," Almontaser wrote to Schools Chancellor Joel Klein last Friday. "They have used my religion as the pretext to undermine the Academy and have taken my words out of context to distort my record and portray me as something that I am not."

Would you like some cheese with that whine?

She just doesn't get it, and obviously never will.

The Post's Andrea Peyser tees off on Almontaser as well as the idiotic notion that New York City needs a madrassa.

SCHOOL BAD IDEA EVEN BEFORE HEBREW-HAHA

DID you hear the one about the Muslim school led by a Jew?

Suffice it to say, it won't have long for this world.

This might be the worst joke ever to hit Brooklyn. Desperate to save its fast-sinking Khalil Gibran International Academy, the Department of Education yesterday named a new principal to replace Debbie "Intifada is Good" Almontaser - who resigned in disgrace before the school opened its doors.

Two things you need to know about the "interim acting" head of the school, whose stated goal is to educate Arab students and sympathizers from grades 6 though 12.

No. 1: The new principal speaks no Arabic.

No. 2: She is a member of the tribe. A Jewess.

Danielle Salzberg is walking into a minefield created by her predecessor, who defended the sale of T-shirts bearing the slogan "Intifada NYC" by stupidly defining the word "intifada" not as the spilling of Jewish blood - but as the benign "shaking off" of oppression.

What was not addressed - even as the Gibran Academy has been revealed as a potential hotbed of anti-Semitic and anti-American sentiment - is why the devil the place was cooked up in the first place. Some bright combination of political correctness and insane guilt has determined that New York needs a public school catering to Arabs.

As she stormed out the door and Salzberg tiptoed in, Almontaser made herself into the poor victim of a hate crime, lashing out at her critics.

Perhaps the Ed Department believes that putting a token Chosen Person at the helm of a rotten organization will save it.

A better question is: Why does the city need a Khalil Gibran Academy?

Indeed.

Well, when you have a mayor like Michael Bloomberg, who never met a constituency he wouldn't pander to, you can figure it out.

Also check out the Post editorial Debbie in Denial and the New York Sun checks in with Jewish Woman Taking Over at Arabic-Language School

New York City's education department is turning to a Jewish woman who belongs to an Upper West Side synagogue to lead an Arabic-language public school that critics have portrayed as a terrorist-friendly "madrassa" in the making.

Khalil Gibran International Academy, which is scheduled to open to a few dozen students for the first time next month, had its founding principal, Dhaba "Debbie" Almontaser, resign on Friday after a flap over her response to a T-shirt promoting an "intifada," or uprising, in New York. Ms. Almontaser's replacement will be Danielle Salzberg, who does not speak Arabic, but grew up in an Orthodox Jewish household and belongs to a Manhattan synagogue, her father, Michael Salzberg, told The New York Sun yesterday.

LGF reader Ornery Elephant noted this very curious poll at Survey Monkey:

What do you think about the I word?

Seems Almontaser and her sympathizers are trying to gin up support for the "Intifada NYC" shirts. Whoever put this up doesn't seem the least bit repentant. Check out these questions:

Can the term “Intifada NYC” ever have a positive non-violent connotation?

Is the controversy around these t-shirts reasonable?

Has media coverage about "Intifada NYC" been fair?

They just don't get it.

Previously: Almontaser Still on NYC DOE Payroll.

UPDATE: Hot Air links and Allahpundit notes the comedic possibilities.

Almontaser Still on NYC DOE Payroll

While former Khalil Gibran International Academy principal Debbie Almontaser resigned Friday, it's disturbing to see she's still on the payroll of the Department of Education. Of course, city officials are probably worried that the stormtroopers from CAIR would probably file some nuisance lawsuits.

Compounding the problem is the feckless Mayor Michael Bloomberg making nice-nice with this woman, who shouldn't be anywhere near a school.

INTIF-ADIOS TO SCHOOL CHIEF

The principal of a controversial city-funded Arab-themed school abruptly resigned yesterday after she ignited a firestorm by saying there was nothing wrong with T-shirts that said "Intifada NYC."

Pressure for Debbie Almontaser's ouster had mounted all week since her tortured explanation that "intifada" was a message of empowerment. The inflammatory statement was about Arab women in New York City "shaking off oppression" and not supporting the Palestinian uprising that killed thousands, she said.

Those remarks, first reported in The Post on Monday, focused renewed attention on her mission to create a dual-language Arabic school for grades 6 through 12. Critics say Khalil Gibran International Academy, which would be located in Boerum Hill, Brooklyn, will isolate Muslim students.

"I think she felt that she has become the focus of, rather than having the school focus, and so today she submitted her resignation, which is nice of her to do and I appreciate her service," Mayor Bloomberg said yesterday on his radio show.

Almontaser will remain on the Department of Education payroll and be reassigned to a position not connected with the academy.

"I became convinced yesterday that this week's headlines were endangering the viability of Khalil Gibran International Academy, even though I apologized," Almontaser said in a statement. "I will not allow the recent outcry to undermine these possibilities for the children of our city."

She was to make $120,197 as principal.

The Department of Education said it remains committed to opening the school, and is searching for a new principal.

Numerous elected officials, citizens and advocacy groups said Almontaser's comments, made in a city already in the cross hairs of Islamic terrorists, raised doubts that she could handle the sensitivity of managing an Arab-themed school.

Maybe if she lit up a cigarette or served some food with trans-fats, then Bloomberg would spring into action.

Despite Almontaser's years of experience working in media and as a spokeswoman for the Arab community, Bloomberg said she simply misspoke about the tees.

"She's certainly not a terrorist. She really does care . . . She's not all that media savvy, maybe, and she tried to explain a word rather than just condemn," he said.

Yes, he's presidential material. He'd fit right in with the painfully pandering Democrats any day of the week.

Meanwhile, the Post editorial smacks School's Chancellor Joel Klein upside the head.

JIHAD'YA LATER

First the good news: Dhabah "Debbie" Almontaser yesterday quit as principal-designate of the city's new Arabic-themed public school - though not without blaming her resignation mostly on The Post (not by name, of course).

But here's the bad news: The Department of Education says it still plans to open the Khalil Gibran International Academy. And Almontaser herself will remain on the DOE payroll in an undetermined role.

After she defended the sale of T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan "Intifada NYC," and then issued a quasi-apology that only made things worse, it was inevitable that Almontaser would have to step down as head of the Arabic academy she'd first proposed.

Her words had brought a sharp rebuke from, among others, teachers-union head Randi Weingarten (until then a strong supporter of the Gibran school), who said, "Parents and teachers have a right to be concerned" about a school run by someone who didn't seem to understand the difference between "peace and war-mongering."

Chancellor Joel Klein's office refuses to release Almontaser's resignation letter. (Why not? Did she write something that would embarrass the department even further?)

But it did issue a statement attributed to Almontaser in which she complained, "This week's headlines were endangering the viability of Khalil Gibran International Academy, even though I apologized."

That is, she's blaming the media - in this case, Post reporters Chuck Bennett and Jana Winter and this page - for reporting and commenting on her foolishness.

I doubt this is the last we'll hear from Almontaser, and if she continues down this radical path, the city will have some explaining to do as to why she's still on the payroll.

Elsewhere, the New York Sun reports there are increased calls for this school to be shut down entirely, which I wholeheartedly concur with.

"I hope that this is the beginning of the end for this entire project," a Democrat who represents Boro Park in New York's state Assembly, Dov Hikind, told The New York Sun Friday. "If this woman, who I hear is a nice woman, if she couldn't get this right, then I think the whole concept just doesn't work."

The Department of Education had backed Ms. Almontaser after her statements about the "Intifada" T-shirts, saying it accepted her quick apology, in which she said she regretted "minimizing the word's historical associations." But after the president of the teachers union, Randi Weingarten, issued a condemnation of Ms. Almontaser, the schools chancellor, Joel Klein, said he admired her decision to resign, saying the "controversy about her remarks threatened to destabilize the school."

Must everyone qualify their remarks by noting "how nice" Almontaser is? This pandering political correctness is simply nauseating.

Previously: "Intifada NYC Principal Resigns.

UPDATE: Reader NY Nana notes the NY Times has finally discovered the story after ignoring it all week.

Head of City’s Arabic School Steps Down Under Pressure.

So nice for the "paper of record" to catch up with the New York Post, New York Sun and the blogs after six days.

Intifada NYC Principal "Regrets" Remarks

They always regret their words once they come to public attention. Now Arabic School principal Debbie Almontaser is furiously backtracking and offering mealy-mouthed explanation for her actions, which, quite frankly, ring hollow.

Arab School Principal Says She Regrets Intifada Remarks

The principal of an Arabic-language public school due to open next month is under fire for taking what several Jewish groups are condemning as a soft stance on the violent Palestinian Arab uprising known as the intifada. The principal, Debbie Almontaser, was quoted yesterday interpreting T-shirts that say "Intifada NYC" as not an endorsement of violence but rather "an opportunity for girls to express that they are part of New York City society ... and shaking off oppression." She followed the word's literal Arabic meaning, which is "struggle" or "uprising."

In a statement late yesterday afternoon, Ms. Almontaser backed away from her comments, reported by the New York Post, saying she regretted suggesting the T-shirt slogan was appropriate. "By minimizing the word's historical associations I implied that I condone violence and threats of violence," she said. "That view is anathema to me and the very opposite of my life's work."

Sure. What a pile of drivel.

Meanwhile, the ADL, which had supported the notion of an Arabic School, has done a 180.

"I feel like a fool. I think Abe Foxman should feel like a fool. And certainly Joel Klein if he sponsors it will be a fool," a CUNY board member who had decided to support the school, Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, said.

Watch it guys, there's only one fool around here...

Today's New York Post editorial reminds NYC school's Chancellor Joel Klein he has a choice to make. Does he have the guts?

Dhabah "Debbie" Almontaser is to be principal of Khalil Gibran Interna tional Academy, New York City's new Arabic-centered public school, when it opens in the fall.

Either she is a fool or she thinks New Yorkers are morons. Regardless, she has no business running a public school.

Almontaser, as The Post's Chuck Bennett and Jana Winter reported yesterday, sits on the board of an organization that shares office space with a group called Arab Women Active in Art and Media, which has been selling T-shirts proudly proclaiming "Intifada NYC."

What does that mean, exactly?

Is it meant to support the Palestinian intifada, which has killed thousands of innocent people over the years?

Is it an incitement to such deadly violence here in New York City?

Neither, according to Almontaser.

"The word basically means 'shaking off,' " she tells The Post. "That is the root word, if you look it up in Arabic."

And while she says that intifada "is developing a negative connotation" because of its murderous anti-Israeli violence, Almontaser claims the shirts are merely "an opportunity for girls to express that they are part of New York City society . . . and shaking off oppression."

And the moon is made of green cheese.

No doubt, Almontaser is right about the literal definition of "intifada."

But if its generally accepted meaning were as benign as she insists, you can bet no one would be wearing it on a T-shirt.

You can further bet that she knows it.

Now, if Dhabah Almontaser is going to be as disingenuous about something like this, why should New Yorkers believe her claim that "you won't find religious or political indoctrination or anti-Americanism" at her Khalil Gibran school?

She's got to go. Of course, the goons from CAIR will file lawsuits in the blink of an eye, but we're used to that. What you don't get through craven acquiescence, you go for through intimidation in the courts.

For background on this school, check out the NY Sun's special page on the Khalil Gibran International Academy.

Previously: Intifada NYC.