A Manhasset man who pleaded guilty in March to charges he falsified financial statements of special education programs he ran in New York City was sentenced in federal court on Friday.
Cheon Park, 46, will serve two years in prison, and pay $2.15 million in restitution for receiving kickback payments from employees of Bilingual SEIT, which provided classes and services to preschoolers with special needs, according to federal prosecutors.
Park was also required to forfeit $1.92 million to the U.S. Marshals service, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said Park was found to have misrepresented the roles his employees had with Bilingual SEIT in financial documents filed to various educational departments that funded the programs.
An investigation by U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara’s office revealed Bilingual SEIT received $94.5 million in funding from the federal, state and city education departments.
To continue receiving funds, Park was required to file annual consolidated fiscal reports and corresponding audited financial statements documenting Bilingual SEIT’s expenses in the previous year, which prosecutors said were then used to determine how much the programs would be funded per student in the future.
“We will continue to do everything in our power to pursue and prosecute those who defraud the government, particularly those who shamelessly siphon scarce public money away from some of the city’s most vital programs,” Bharara said in a statement.
A year-long investigation by state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli’s office in July 2012 concluded that $1.5 million in costs that Park documented to the city from July 2007 to 2009 should not have been allowed, including payments to 26 employees with unsubstantiated work hours.
Following the report, the city’s education department canceled Bilingual SEIT classes and did not renew its contract with the program.
Prosecutors said Park also used Bilingual SEIT funds for personal use, arranging for the program to pay his ex-wife and ex-sister-in-law for work they never actually did.
According to consolidated financial statements Park filed, Park’s ex-wife served the program from 2006-12 as its assistant executive director, the second most senior position with Bilingual SEIT and among the program’s highest-compensated employees.
Park’s ex-wife was actually just an office worker, prosecutors said, and his former sister-in-law never actually worked for the company.
Park also allegedly arranged for the program to pay for the tutoring of Park’s children and for a Bilingual SEIT employee to clean Park’s home twice a week.
Park was arraigned in November 2013 on felony counts of mail fraud and conspiracy to commit mail fraud, which carried 20-year maximum sentences.
He pleaded in March to a mail fraud charge as part of a plea agreement in exchange for an up to a five-year sentence and restitution payments.
The case was prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Public Corruption Unit.
