Parent Advocate Arrested on Charges of Defrauding AZ School District
December 19, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
An Arizona man, Raymond G. Parenteau, was arrested on Wednesday on the charges of allegedly defrauding the Prescott Unified School District of almost $20,000, today’s Daily Courier reports. Parenteau had contracted with the school district for $55 an hour to homeschool his 12-year-old autistic son; he is alleged to have hired a certified special education instructor to work with his son for $25 an hour, and to have kept $30 for himself:
During a nine-month period starting in January 2007, Parenteau allegedly charged the school district $36,258. He paid the special education assistant only $16,262 of the money he received from PUSD. Parenteau also allegedly billed the school district for hours not used for teaching his son and created false invoices.
Says Parenteau, who has also advocated on behalf of several parents of autistic children during the past few months:
“The charges are unfounded. I will end up vindicated………This gets PUSD what it wanted. I am not allowed to help other students. As a condition of my release on bail, I have to stay away from PUSD.”
Parenteau was charged with felony fraudulent schemes and forgery, and is currently out on bail.
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Check out what others are saying about this post...[...] 8.) Relief for parents who have paid out of pocket to educate their children must be made swiftly with 100% reimbursement. Who is this reimubursement to come from and on what grounds? Only for educational services? How much of this “relief” will be compensated? (And there may be some concerns in the wake of stories such as this.) [...]