Piazza agrees to guilty plea

SCRANTON – Former Wilkes-Barre+Area+Career+and+Technical+Center%22>Wilkes-Barre Area Career and Technical Center employee Jeff Piazza has agreed to plead guilty to charges he accepted thousands of dollars in kickbacks over several years in exchange for helping a technology vendor land lucrative deals with the center.

Although the maximum sentence is steep, Piazza, 33, likely faces four to 10 months incarceration.

The plea agreement was signed by Piazza nine days after he abruptly resigned his job as attendance coordinator at the center, effective Nov. 10. He gave no reason for leaving the $55,700 post.

According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Piazza, who was originally hired three years out of high school in 1999 as technology coordinator for $38,000, recommended a vendor for technology-related equipment, and the vendor, “with intent to defraud,” led representatives of the school to believe the prices were fair when they “had been artificially and materially inflated” to help cover the cost of kickbacks to Piazza.

The information also says Piazza and the vendor created and maintained false records, with some records created by a third unnamed person at Piazza’s direction “to make it appear as if the vendor paid the third person for providing training, consulting and technical services.” The vendor and Piazza filed forms with the IRS that “falsely reported the payment of ‘non-employee compensation’ to a third person who, in fact, had not performed any services.” Those IRS forms are the basis for a charge of mail fraud.

The paperwork does not name the vendor, but the FBI has looked at records of Intellacom at Pittston Area, Wyoming Valley West, and Luzerne County Community College. Intellacom did work at all four, as well as at the Career Center, where the FBI subpoenaed records in April.

Former Pittston Area School Board member Joe Oliveri and Superintendent Ross Scarantino have pleaded guilty to charges they accepted money in exchange for helping a company get district business. Oliveri’s son had worked for Intellacom.

Scarantino had sat on the LCCC Board of Trustees when much of the Intellacom work was approved. Oliveri also sat on the Career Center Joint Operating Committee.

Piazza’s father, August Piazza, had served as a Pittston Area School Board member, Career Center JOC member and LCCC board of trustees. The elder Piazza had spent more than three decades as an educator at Wyoming Valley West School District, working his way up to superintendent.

Records show the Career Center did more than $1 million in business with Intellacom from 2003 through 2008. By comparison, minutes of JOC meetings show contracts and work awarded to other technology companies often ran only a few hundred or few thousand dollars.

A big chunk of Intellacom’s work at the center came through installation of camera security system similar to ones installed at Pittston and LCCC. In all three cases, at least some of that equipment was sold through a state program that allows buyers to bypass the usual mandated bidding process because the state has obtained low bids from the companies.

But paperwork for the Intellacom jobs at LCCC and Pittston Area apparently did not go through official channels recommended to ensure the prices are those set under the state program.

Intellacom is owned by Anthony Trombetta, who also owned the defunct restaurant Portafino’s, where Jeff Piazza had worked part time, after he had closed a Kingston restaurant he ran from 2002-07. That restaurant, Gellpia’z, closed after defaulting on $117,850 owed on a business development loan from Luzerne County.

Piazza opened a new restaurant, La Piazza, in Jenkins Township last year. Trombetta also owns Terra Firma, Inc., which developed Insignia Point in Jenkins Township, where Piazza lives.

The federal paperwork does not name the third party involved in the alleged fraud. The Times Leader found no clear mention of training in invoices from or payments to Intellacom from the Career Center. JOC members Joe Moran, who represents Wilkes-Barre Area School District, and Gene Mancini, who represents Crestwood, both said they vaguely recalled some discussion among committee members questioning whether the center had received its money’s worth from Intellacom, but couldn’t recall specifics. Both noted they were not on the JOC until recently.

Anthony Guariglia, who replaced Oliveri as Pittston Area’s representative on the JOC, said he knew nothing about the charges and couldn’t comment. Other JOC members did not return calls seeking comment.

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CTC worker says he accepted kickbacks

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