A Kearny public school employee alleged to have pocketed bundles of cash at her job will likely avoid doing time for her now-confessed misdeeds.
In a plea agreement concluded July 10 with the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office, Gina Neri, 50, of North Arlington, an ex-bookkeeper in the Kearny Board of Education payroll department, pleaded guilty to one count of theft by deception, a third-degree crime and one count of failure to file state tax returns, also a third-degree crime.
At the plea hearing conducted before Hudson County Superior Court Judge Paul DePascale, Assistant Hudson County Prosecutor Joseph Pahopin appeared for the state. The defendant has been represented by Fairfield attorney Timothy Smith.
Neri will be sentenced by DePascale on Sept. 14.
The state reportedly has no plans to seek a criminal indictment and trial of the defendant — which would normally be the next step in her prosecution but for her plea arrangement.
A source in the county prosecutor’s office, who asked not to be named, said the state would be seeking “non-custodial probation” — meaning no jail time — but the state would also be requesting “full restitution of $318,106.38” and the “filing of updated state tax returns” by Neri.
Typically, convictions of individuals for third-degree crimes can result in sentences ranging from three to five years, based on criminal sentencing guidelines.
Restitution would, presumably, be made to the Kearny school board’s insurance carrier which, according to KBOE attorney Kenneth Lindenfelser, is in the process of making the school district whole for its loss, as provided under the policy between the KBOE and the carrier that covers the district for losses resulting from criminality.
By law, under terms of her plea, Neri would forfeit the right to work in a public sector job unless and until her criminal record should be expunged, Lindenfelser said.
Neri was initially charged on Jan. 22, 2018, with the alleged theft of about $190,000 from the Kearny Board of Education by unlawfully negotiating checks drawn on her employer’s bank account between 2011 and 2017.
She allegedly used the money for her personal benefit, the state charged.
The state subsequently revised its estimate of the amount of money allegedly stolen by Neri after further examination of district records in consultation with school administrators.
In the wake of the incident, Kearny Superintendent of Schools Patricia Blood has said that steps have been taken — involving both district fiscal personnel and internal accounting procedures — to ensure the protection against any future losses.
On May 21, 2018, Neri was additionally charged with multiple tax violations by the HCPO’s Public Integrity Special Investigations Unit after a joint investigation with the state Division of Taxation’s Office of Criminal investigation.
Those charges were: failure to file return, failure to pay and filing of fraudulent return — all third-degree crimes.
Following an internal investigation by the school district in 2017, Neri was suspended without pay from her $60,000-a-year job by the KBOE. At first, her union contested that move, but as the criminal probe — and subsequent charges — unfolded, the union dropped its challenge and offered Neri the services of a criminal attorney, according to Lindenfelser.
