Charter school exec pleads guilty to stealing, tax fraud

The former chief executive of the Philadelphia Academy Charter School, in Northeast Philadelphia, pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court to stealing $500,000 and filing a false tax return in 2006.

Kevin M. O'Shea, 50, of Glenn Street near Berea, apologized to U.S. District Judge Eduardo Robreno.

Robreno set sentencing for Oct. 22. O'Shea could face 41 to 51 months behind bars under preliminary advisory guidelines.

O'Shea also has agreed to forfeit $500,000 to the feds in addition to any fines and restitution that Robreno might order at sentencing.

As part of his plea agreement, O'Shea is cooperating with prosecutors in the Philadelphia Academy investigation and others.

O'Shea was released on $100,000 unsecured bond, and his travel is restricted to southeastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

O'Shea's attorney, Peter Hardy, a former federal prosecutor, declined comment after the plea hearing.

Authorities said that O'Shea, a burly man and ex-police officer, had no experience in school administration when he was hired by Philadelphia Academy in 1999.

By September 2002, former chief executive and school founder Brien Gardiner - who was a target of the probe and who committed suicide in May - hired O'Shea as director of operations.

Five years later, in 2007, O'Shea was hired to replace Gardiner as CEO at Gardiner's behest, authorities said.

When O'Shea left the school in May 2008, he was making $204,000 a year. The feds said that the salary had been approved by only one board member, former board president Rosemary DiLacqua.

DiLacqua, 61, also a former police officer and onetime nominee for the Daily News' Fencl Award, was scheduled to plead guilty to mail fraud this morning.

She is accused of approving hefty salary increases for O'Shea and Gardiner, and of accepting $34,000 in undisclosed payments.

Authorities said that O'Shea and Gardiner had been involved in numerous fraudulent activities between March 2002 and May 2008: They demanded kickbacks from Philadelphia Academy vendors; submitted bogus invoices for reimbursement of at least $40,000 for personal meals, entertainment, home improvements, gas and telephone bills; billed $50,000 worth of home repairs improperly to Philadelphia Academy; and collected $34,000 in rent from entities using Philadelphia Academy facilities.

Authorities said that O'Shea and Gardiner used more than $700,000 in school funds to buy a building on Bustleton Avenue for the benefit of a nonprofit that they controlled, but the deal never closed after the federal probe became public, and the money was never returned to Philadelphia Academy. *