The Union City Board of Education launched an investigation into a Cablevision bill of almost $150 of pay-per-view pornography ordered on one of their office cable boxes this past February.
The obscene programs were ordered from February 12 through 23 during the board’s hours of operation, but only recently came to their attention when they received the bill.
“We as a district have zero tolerance for this type of activity,” said Superintendent Stanley Sanger. “The Board of Education and I are going through an intensive, independent investigation to [find] who might have been responsible for this. Once that investigation is completed, we will make every effort to do the right thing, to protect the integrity of the Board of Education, and make sure this never happens again.”
Sanger also added that pending the outcome of the investigation, any warranted disciplinary action will be taken on the party responsible.
Leading the investigation was board attorney Thomas Kobin, who hired an outside firm to conduct the independent investigation.
“I’m hoping to have it done by the end of this week,” said Kobin, last Tuesday. “We have an independent outside firm doing the investigation. [However], we haven’t asked any questions as to what their findings are at this time because we don’t want to compromise the investigation.”
According to Kobin, depending on the outcome of the investigation any actions taken towards the individual or individuals responsible may remain out of the public eye, if they are tenured employees.
“Under [state] law charges against a tenured employee have to be conducted in executive session, which means it’s not public,” said Kobin.
Month-long investigation
Since beginning their investigations about a month ago, a number of people have been interviewed although no one person or group of individuals has been singled out.
“We have interviewed a number of people in the district office, who may have been or may work in or around the area that this [allegedly] occurred,” said Sanger. “We are also working closely with Cablevision and sharing information.”
Cable boxes are provided to all of the Union City schools, as well as the Board of Education, which are meant to be used for educational purposes and programming only.
“Unfortunately someone used them inappropriately,” said Sanger.
The cable boxes have since been removed from all the schools and board offices with the exception of the superintendent and Assistant Superintendent Gerald Caputo, which will be used strictly for emergency situations.
“We’ve had a long-term relationship with Cablevision, which has been a very positive relationship up to this point,” said Sanger. “They are very concerned as well.”
The board and Cablevision are also enforcing tighter code access and restrictions to the remaining cable boxes to ensure that this situation is not repeated.
In addition, due to the circumstances, Cablevision will not be billing the Board of Education for the programming.
“Cablevision has already agreed that they won’t charge the Board of Education due to the fact that it was used inappropriately and because of the nature of this issue,” said Sanger.
Un-educational programming
The independent investigation has been going on for about a month. It started just prior to the district’s Easter break, which took place from April 9 through 13, and was first brought to the attention of Sanger and the board after internal controls received the Cablevision bill. Cablevision also informed them of the peculiarity around the same time.
“This is the first time we have ever experienced anything like this at the Board of Education,” said Sanger. “We are very concerned and very embarrassed by it, and doing our best to do the right thing.”
The obscene material, which was ordered from February 12 through 23 during the board’s hours of operation, included “Knockouts No. 9,” “Forbidden Desires,” “Club Jenna,” “Housewives Nude,” and other Playboy programming. A majority of the programs were priced at $8.95 and $9.95.
The board also alerted the Hudson County Prosecutor’s Office to the situation, although unnecessary, and agreed to handle the situation in-house.
“We are not hiding anything in any way,” said Sanger. “We are fully cooperating with all the agencies involved.” Jessica Rosero can be reached jrosero@hudsonreporter.com