A Yonkers public schools transportation supervisor has been sentenced to state prison and a Yonkers bus company owner faces felony charges for their alleged theft of about $280,000 from the city as payments for phantom bus pickups.
Yonkers resident Anna Sollozzo, a 54-year-old transportation supervisor for the Yonkers Board of Education, was sentenced on June 1 to two to six years in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree grand larceny and third-degree criminal tax fraud for her role in a scheme carried out from September 2012 to April 2014, according to Acting Westchester County District Attorney James A. McCarty.
Her alleged accomplice, 60-year-old Armonk resident William Ahern, owner of A Plus Transportation in Yonkers, reportedly was arraigned Monday on felony counts of second-degree grand larceny and second-degree rewarding official misconduct. Ahern allegedly submitted false invoices that Sollozzo approved for bus pickups of students at the Nepperhan Community Center. The services were never provided, according to the district attorney”™s office.
A Plus Transportation had contracts with the city for bus services that totaled approximately $2.8 million for roughly the period over which the alleged fraud occurred.
Prosecutors charged that Ahern during the same period made secret deposits totaling $107,250 into Sollozzo”™s personal bank account. Sollozzo failed to pay $282,398 in state income tax due from March 2011 to April 2014, according to the district attorney”™s office.
Prosecutors said the fraud at the board of education was discovered while the Yonkers inspector general was investigating an unrelated complaint.
