Hogan directs sharpest criticism at district’s solicitor
By Kathleen Brady Shea, Managing Editor, The Times
Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan.
The war of words between Chester County District Attorney Tom Hogan and the Coatesville Area School District school board escalated Saturday when Hogan ripped the board’s late-night Friday reply to his claim that the district was potentially impeding an ongoing investigation by his office.
Hogan called the release “close to midnight on a Friday night,” a metaphor for the board’s approach to the case. “They are skulking in the dark, responding ineptly from the gloom, and making things worse for themselves and the entire school district,” Hogan said. “I have said it before and I will say it again – the children and taxpayers of the Coatesville Area School District deserve better.”
The latest round of testy exchanges between the two began after the school district issued a news release on Tuesday, April 1, stating that Assistant Superintendent Angelo Romaniello had been place on administrative leave, pending the outcome of an investigation by county, state and district investigators. Hogan responded with a news release taking issue with the district’s suggestion that it had been cooperating with his investigators.
Related Stories: CASD board emphatically denies D.A.’s accusations
D.A. rips CASD, Ellison on investigation obstruction
That statement prompted another written statement from the board, which emphatically disputed those allegations. Hogan also stated that the situation that led to Romaniello’s administrative leave had been reviewed and deemed non-criminal. The board’s statement questioned why Hogan would suggest that the board had acted improperly. It maintained that it kept everyone, including its special counsel, Matthew Haverstick, informed after Board Member Deborah Thompson received information on March 27 from district employees Dr. Theresa Powell and Abdallah Hawa that led to the decision to place Romaniello on administrative leave.
Haverstick did not return an email seeking comment.
Although Powell and Hawa were the employees who exposed the text-messaging scandal that surfaced in September and led to the resignations of former Superintendent Richard Como and Coatesville Area High School Athletic Director James Donato, the board said the investigation of Romaniello was unrelated to that situation, which made national headlines and involved racially-charged texts on district phones issued to Como and Donato.
The District Attorney’s Office seized the phones in conjunction with a pre-existing investigation of the district, the results of which have not yet been made public. Tensions have percolated ever since. In October, Hogan also publicly accused the board and its solicitor of obstructing the ongoing criminal investigation, urging the board to appoint special counsel to avoid Solicitor James Ellison’s apparent conflict of interest.
In the Saturday statement, Hogan issued his sharpest criticism to date of Ellison. Although the Conrad O’Brien firm was appointed and assigned Haverstick to oversee the investigation, Hogan said Ellison has excluded him from key communications.
“The problem with the internal investigation of Romaniello is the involvement of CASB Solicitor James Ellison,” Hogan wrote. “Ellison has a clear conflict of interest in being involved in any investigation of Romaniello. Ellison is being investigated by the D.A.’s Office. Romaniello is a witness in that investigation. Any first-year law student could identify that conflict and realize that Ellison must be removed from the investigation.”
Neither Ellison nor Board President J. Neil Campbell responded immediately to emails seeking comment.
Further proof of Ellison’s prominent role in the school board’s actions is the fact that he continues to act as its spokesperson, Hogan said. “In fact, this most recent CASB press release sounds like it was drafted and orchestrated by Ellison, without ever checking in with special counsel,” wrote Hogan. “Special counsel exists to keep Ellison from being involved in the criminal investigation. But Ellison appears determined to ignore prior warnings about staying out of this investigation.”
Hogan noted that the board’s statement of Friday “completely fails to address one of the main issues raised by the District Attorney’s Office: that certain board members are refusing to answer questions about Ellison’s conduct in this case.” Calling the board’s silence on this issue “deafening,” Hogan wrote: “In failing to address this issue, the CASB response is revealed as an attempt to distract from their failure to cooperate. Furthermore, the CASB non-response is an admission that they are engaging in this course of conduct and have no intention to change their obstructive position…If there is nothing to cover up, why not answer the questions about Ellison?”
During the initial investigation into the text-messaging, Hogan said Ellison brought in a technology company that locked Hawa, one of the whistle-blowers, out of the school district’s computer system. Ellison claimed that he was simply preserving evidence, Hogan said, adding that “it has become clear that the technology company was instructed specifically to target the whistle-blower’s files, which has the appearance of interfering with the conduct of a cooperating witness, a continuing theme in this case.”
Hogan suggested that the public study “the big picture regarding Ellison” in the case. “Coatesville is the poorest school district in Chester County, with the highest taxes, and with the most diverse student body. From the public’s perspective, Ellison botched the board’s initial handling of the racist texts from Como and Donato,” Hogan wrote. “Then the District Attorney’s Office announced that Ellison was under investigation for potential over-billing of the school district. The media publicly reported that Ellison had billed the school district for millions of dollars over the years, in amounts that were wildly disproportionate to the legal bills for surrounding school districts.”
Media reports also indicated that Ellison “had a separate ethics violation finding in an unrelated case,” Hogan wrote. “Shortly after the announcement that Ellison was being investigated for over-billing, Ellison’s law firm, which has been cooperating in this investigation, parted ways with Ellison and announced that it would no longer represent the school district,” Hogan wrote.
Hogan said Ellison responded by raising “his hourly billing rate from $180 per hour to $200 per hour” and demanding to be re-hired by the board, which did exactly that. “All of this defies common sense,” Hogan concluded.
