RHODE ISLAND (UPDATE) SCHOOL COMPUTERS STOLEN School’s suspicions grew as its computers disappeared | Rhode Island news | projo.com | The Providence Journal:

School’s suspicions grew as its computers disappeared

01:00 AM EDT on Monday, June 22, 2009

By Michael P. McKINNEY

Journal Staff Writer

CUMBERLAND –– Mike Chandler, the School Department’s computer network manager, was worried: computers were disappearing from a secured storage room in a building on the Cumberland High School campus.

The first one he was aware of vanished overnight in September. More were missing in October. By December, about half of the 30 new Hewlett-Packard laptops delivered in August were no longer there.

Computers do sometimes transit through the storage room on their way to and from various locations, such as classrooms, other areas of the various schools or out for repairs.

But on April 1, Chandler noticed at the end of the day that two more had disappeared. That’s when he called school Supt. Donna A. Morelle at home, leaving a message that something unsettling was happening. Morelle returned the call to find a “very upset, very worried” Chandler on the line.

He told her about the missing computers and said he had done some “leg work” to find where they may have gone. The leg work, he said, led to some inconsistencies.

The next day, Morelle shared the evening phone call with Joseph Rotella, director of administration. They met with Chandler’s boss, Robert Legacy, the school district’s director of information technology.

By 10 a.m. that day Morelle was telling the police about the missing computers. That touched off an investigation with more than 20 people, most of them School Department employees, being interviewed, sometimes twice, about how and when they had purchased their computers. Many brought their computers to the police station so investigators could check serial numbers to determine whether they had been stolen.

As of last week, the police say they can prove 21 school district computers, all new, were stolen, according to Police Chief John Desmarais. They have been recovered and are being stored as evidence.

Cranston resident Kevin Legacy, 20, has been charged with stealing the computers, some of which his former employer supplied to the School Department. His father, Robert Legacy, 52, the technology administrator, also of Cranston, has been charged with selling them to a diverse cast of unsuspecting individuals: a custodian, secretaries, an accountant, an elementary school principal, the high school athletics director, the School Department’s financial manager. A high school student and a few others, including a project manager for the renovation of the high school, also were customers.

Statements to the police and those prepared by police during the investigation are in the Legacys’ Superior Court file.

The computer deals, involving desktop models as well as the laptops, were allegedly arranged over some 18 months by Robert Legacy and include one that happened about six months after he was named in February 2007 to the $86,500-a-year post of information technology director.

Lorna Lafond, a human-resources clerk at the high school, sought advice about buying a new computer for her children.

Lafond told the police, according to a written statement, that Robert Legacy said he had a friend with new computers to sell. He brought a Dell desktop to her home and installed it, and she gave him a $700 check.

According to police Detective Jackie E. Hooper, the September 2007 transaction was the “first confirmed sale of a Cumberland School Departmentcomputer to an employee.”

Lafond told the police she had no idea that she was buying school property.

“I am totally in the dark about this,” she said.

Alexander Prignano, the department’s business manager, also bought a computer, according to court files. He told the police he was aware that Jeannine I. Rue, a school accountant, had recently purchased a desktopcomputer from Robert Legacy. Legacy had told her it was from a friend who didn’t want it.

Prignano asked Rue how she liked her new computer. She said she was “very satisfied” so he asked Legacy to see if his friend had any computers left.

“Bob told me he would bring it down and he would hook it up and I purchased the computer,” Prignano told the police.

Prignano, who said he has known Robert Legacy for more than 20 years, wrote him a $500 check for the computer.

A year later, Thomas Stepka, principal of Garvin Memorial Elementary School, told the police he was talking with Robert Legacy, who mentioned he had sixcomputers for sale. Most were “spoken for,” Legacy told him, but if one was not picked up in two weeks he would sell it to Stepka, according to the principal’s brief statement to the police.

He said the eventual $500 transaction took place in the basement of the transitional building, a structure that houses the school district administration offices.

In the spring of the 2007-08 school year, Robert Legacy offered to let student Jared Bisson take home a Dell laptop to show his mother, according to a written statement. Jared met Legacy while videotaping School Committee meetings.

Jared told the police he bought a Dell laptop, like the one he had taken home, from Legacy on May 9, 2008. His mother paid $200 in cash for it, according to a written statement.

According to statements and police accounts, Robert Legacy offered all sorts of explanations for why he had computers to sell. He told some he had a brother –– sometimes he referred to a brother-in-law –– who worked for an insurance company and could get laptops whenever the company upgraded. Or, he had a friend who no longer wanted somecomputers. He also said he knew of a company that was liquidating.

Chandler, the School Department’s computer network manager whose concerns led to the investigation, told the police that Robert Legacy offered explanations for why computers were disappearing. “His story would always change,” he said. At one point Legacy said computers had been sent back to Hub Technical Services in exchange for credit for other items the School Department needed. Chandler said he did not find any paperwork on that transfer.

Last Tuesday, the attorney general’s office charged Robert Legacy with one count each of felony embezzlement, conspiracy and receivingstolen goods. Kevin Legacy was charged with larceny and conspiracy for an alleged scheme in which the son stole computers and the father sold them.

Kevin worked for awhile at Hub Technical Services of Massachusetts, the company that provided the 30 Hewlett-Packard laptops to Cumberland in the summer of 2008. He was fired in January, but the spokeswoman would not say why.

Robert Legacy has been suspended without pay. His court-appointed lawyer, Neal R. Steingold, declined to comment. According to court records, a lawyer has not entered the case yet for Kevin Legacy.

mmckinne@projo.com