School Janitor Stole $29,000, Used It On Prep School Tuition

A custodian at a city school in Harlem allegedly stole $29,000 from the school's payroll and used some of the cash to send his kids to a costly prep school in Pennsylvania. Edwin Hendricks, 42, reportedly confessed to withdrawing the cash from a Thurgood Marshall Academy custodial account that he was supposed to monitor, but said he "normally only stole money around the end of the year."

An investigator told the the Post that Hendricks "had a variety of ways of stealing money," including writing $1,772 in checks to himself for periods for which he had already been compensated, and writing checks for his sister—who actually worked for a bank in Newark. Hendricks reportedly used $1,400 of the stolen money to pay for his kids to attend the Solebury School in Pennsylvania, where tuition can cost almost $43,000. He said he eventually planned to reimburse the city for that expenditure, as well as $150 of stolen money he donated to Rep. Ed Towns (D-Brooklyn).

According to the Daily News, Hendricks admitted he augmented his $86,000 salary with $14,000 of stolen money, but investigators think he took $15,000 more. Hendricks said he took the money because his wife was sick and he was facing "financial hardship." In some cases, he claimed he had mistakenly stolen the money by accidentally billing his work account when he meant to use his personal account. He told investigators "[a]t least I'm not as bad" as a custodian accused of stealing nearly $100,000 from West Side High School. Department of Education spokeswoman Margie Feinberg stated: "We will seek his termination."

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By Ben Muessig in News on March 4, 2010 2:16 PM

Comments [rss]

afbnegx3

I feel bad for his kids who have to deal with the embarrassment at school.

zodak

all school janitors are lazy scumbags who make way too much $

Caleb

wow i have friends who go to the school he sent his kids to.

schadenfreudian mensch

I'm in the wrong profession if there's a job just to mop floors and get $86k a year.

Guest

we all are.

Cannibal

Its like a lasagna of irony

Guest

the dad just wanted to educate his kids about 'white-collar' crime.

Guest

"my dad has two jobs...

...and no, i don't want to share what either of them is."

JacqueMehoff

isn't this one of those charter schools?

JenChungsBaby

"I go through your lockers, I listen to your conversations...you don't know that but I do....I am the eyes and ears of this institution."

afbnegx3

Classic Breakfast Club!

Mr. Shankly

Hi Carl!

mikemaffei

Wow. Reading this, it's very, very possible that the Post may have confused the term 'custodian' -- as someone that handles with money with a fiduciary responbsibility -- with a second definition of 'custodian'...namely 'janitor'.

mikemaffei

Nope -- I stand corrected: I guess this guy really is a janitor. A quick google serch identifies him as the owner of "Cerris Industrial Supply".

longacre

Daily News reports he's a janitor, too, but I guess they could both be wrong.

turkishjade

Wait, a janitor is making 86,000? Isn't that more than most teachers make?

Mr Mel

Probably not, but it's close.

turkishjade

Weird that a guy who can clean a lavatory without gagging makes the same as a guy who graduated with a degree in education. I'm not knocking either profession, but it seems like the people who make the budgets in the schools have their priorities mixed up.

And LOL at someone who makes 80K with a toilet brush "supplementing" his income through theft. Classic.