Rent by charter school probed

In March, Philadelphia Academy sent a document to the district that said that in addition to Katz, the other two board members were Yvonne D'Angelo McGinley and Jack Apsche. Last week, both said they had never been on the nonprofit's board.

McGinley, a financial official at Charter School Choice Inc., a Philadelphia company that handled the finances at Philadelphia Academy for 10 months, said that although Gardiner may have wanted her to join the board, she never did.

Apsche, a clinical psychologist from Bucks County who has known Gardiner since the 1970s and provided training to PACS staff, said he declined when he was asked to join the board by both Gardiner and O'Shea in April. "I was asked right before things hit the fan," Apsche said. "When it hit, I was so glad I said no."

An April 14 letter to the district from the office of Gardiner's attorney, Albert S. Dandridge 3d, again said Aspche was on the nonprofit's board, as well as two other men, Robert Purdy and Gerard Brennan. Neither could be reached. Dandridge declined to comment.

Katz, the SEPTA attorney who believes she still sits on the board, said she had never met Purdy or Brennan, who was shown as having joined the board in 2006. The district began investigating the school in March following complaints of mismanagment, nepotism, and conflicts of interest. In April, the SRC delayed a vote on renewing the school's charter to give the district's inspector general time to complete his investigation.

The decision came a day after The Inquirer detailed the allegations concerning the popular Northeast school, and reported that a web of charter and business entities enabled Gardiner and O'Shea to earn more than most area superintendents. The federal criminal probe began shortly after.

The school's nonprofit bought the high school building and surrounding property at 1700 Tomlinson Rd. for $2.45 million in February 2004 and undertook extensive renovations of a former warehouse for the high school, which opened in September 2005.

A lawyer for Charter School Choice Inc., a financial services company that handled the finances of both the charter school and the nonprofit between September and June 30, said that monthly checks to cover the high school's rent were deposited in the nonprofit's account at Sovereign Bank. The nonprofit's mortgage payments for the property were automatically made through electronic transfers.

Tom Hogan, Charter School Choice's attorney, said that only the nonprofit's board had any other access to the funds. He said as far as the company knows, those board members are Jamie O'Shea, Eileen Katz and Rhonda Anderson.

It's not uncommon for charter schools in Pennsylvania to establish separate nonprofit corporations to own their buildings. When officials at Philadelphia Academy decided to set one up, they relied on the advice of the school's previous attorney, Robert W. O'Donnell, a former Democratic state representative from Philadelphia and former speaker of the House. O'Donnell said this week that he no longer represented the nonprofit and was not sure who did.