Former school official logs plea in felony case
A former Greene County school superintendent, Charles Rembold, pleaded no contest to charges he used his position with the West Greene School District to funnel state grant money into a company for which he secretly served as director. Rembold pleaded no contest to felony charges of criminal conspiracy to commit theft by unlawful taking and a conflict of interest ethics violation in Columbia County Court on Nov. 20.
The plea is not an admission of guilt but an acknowledgement that the commonwealth likely had enough evidence to reach a conviction if the case were to go to trial, according to Nils Frederiksen, spokesman for state Attorney General Tom Corbett.
An additional count of theft by unlawful taking was dropped as part of the plea arrangement, Frederiksen said.
“From our point of view, in all likelihood those charges would be consolidated for sentencing purposes,” Frederiksen said, referring to the conspiracy and theft charges. “It won’t have substantial impact on the sentence he receives; the end result is the same. There’s no difference in the way a no contest plea is sentenced and the way a guilty plea is sentenced.”
Rembold was superintendent in West Greene from 1993 to 2001. He also was employed as a superintendent in the Jefferson-Morgan School District before retiring in 2005.
The charges against Rembold came more than two years after a report by the state Ethics Commission alleged that Rembold had violated the state Ethics Act by applying for grant funding for the West Greene School District to implement an at-risk youth initiative called PULSE, despite serving as director for King’s Bridge Inc., which developed and holds the copyright for the program.
His position with the consulting firm he helped create and the school district created a conflict of interest, according to the commission’s report.
The charge of conspiracy has a maximum sentence of seven years in prison and a $15,000 fine. The conflict of interest violation has a maximum of five years in prison and $10,000 penalty. Rembold agreed to an “open plea,” which puts sentencing in the hands of the judge, Frederiksen said.
“We feel the end result is the same as if the case would go to trial,” Frederiksen said. “We secured a conviction.”
Rembold’s sentencing is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. Dec. 20 before Columbia County Judge Thomas James.
Michael S. Wilcox of Warrenton, Va., a former superintendent of Southern Columbia School District in Columbia County, who also served as a former director for King’s Bridge, faced the same charges as Rembold, and pleaded guilty earlier this year, Frederiksen said. He will be sentenced at 9 a.m. Dec. 18.
The state said both former superintendents persuaded their respective school boards to adopt PULSE while concealing their positions as directors of King’s Bridge, while they secured as many as 17 different grants that included funding for the PULSE program in both of their districts. The state Attorney General’s office alleged that Rembold unlawfully received payments totaling $27,798 from King’s Bridge for participating in PULSE training programs, and that Wilcox received $27,900 from King’s Bridge.
Rembold had repaid $26,397.50 in 2004 to the state as restitution in the Ethics Commission investigation.