Witness tells how charter's documents were doctored

PHILADELPHIA A teacher who was on the boards of two charter schools founded by Dorothy June Brown told a federal court jury Tuesday about how statements and actions came to be attributed to her in meeting minutes even though she had not attended the sessions.

Lisa Cabungcal, who taught at Laboratory Charter School in 2000 and left in 2007, was the fourth former employee and phantom board member to testify in the $6.7 million fraud trial who purportedly approved contracts with management companies Brown controlled.

In sometimes tearful testimony, Cabungcal, who was Agora Cyber Charter School's board president, said she signed many documents in that capacity, including the charter granted by the state Department of Education.

Although she said she had trouble recalling details, Cabungcal said she attended some board meetings, but testified that she never presided over a meeting or voted on any resolutions.

She said she prepared the minutes for the evening meetings, despite not having attended them because she needed to pick up her children by 5 p.m.

When Assistant U.S. Attorney Frank Costello Jr. asked Cabungcal how she could take minutes if she had not been at the meetings, she replied: "I wrote down what Dr. Brown wanted in the minutes."

Why did those minutes include comments and votes that indicated that Cabungcal had participated? Costello asked.

"I was supposed to be present, so I had to put in my name," she said.

Cabungcal said she was a Laboratory employee even after she moved from the classroom to the business office for Brown's educational network in 2001, where she was the technology coordinator and assisted with curriculum. Signing documents, she said, was part of her job.

Cabungcal said she left Brown's employ in August 2007 but remained in touch with her and considered her a friend.

Sometime after that, Cabungcal said, Brown asked her to sign four Agora board resolutions dating back to 2006. Brown said the staff had lost the originals.

Cabungcal said she was troubled by the request and spent two hours at the business office trying to decide what to do before signing the resolutions.

In cross-examination, Cabungcal said Brown did not force her to sign them.

Brown is accused of defrauding the four charters she founded. The 67-count federal indictment charges that Brown devised a scheme to defraud the schools and conspired with two former administrators to obstruct justice by initiating a cover-up.

Brown founded three small elementary schools in Philadelphia: Laboratory, which has campuses in Northern Liberties, Overbrook, and Wynnefield; Ad Prima, with campuses in Overbrook and Frankford; and Planet Abacus, in Tacony.

Brown also established Agora in 2005 but cut her ties with it in 2009 as part of a settlement involving several civil suits, including one from the state Department of Education.

That dispute centered on a management contract between Agora and Cynwyd Group, a company that Brown controlled.

The U.S. Attorney's Office alleges that Agora's board never approved the contract and sent the department a fabricated document in 2008.

Former state Education Secretary Gerald L. Zahorchak testified Tuesday that he had approved the settlement that paid Cynwyd $1.7 million in funds the state had withheld from Agora in the belief that the contract the cyber charter had produced was legitimate. He said he would not have authorized the payment otherwise.

The trial for Brown continues Wednesday in U.S. District Court.