We would like to
address the findings of the audit recently released by the Oak Ridge School system. This audit was
conducted after our son, Alex Heitman, died unexpectedly in the summer of 2011.
We’ve tried for nearly three years to obtain public information from your
school system, police department and court system with very little success. We
were first notified of this audit two days before it was released to the press by
Dr. Bruce Borchers when he informed us on June 18, 2014 that he was responding
to a press inquiry.
It is important for
people to understand that most of the findings, eleven of fifteen, reveal that
though there were a number of ways that Alex could have transferred funds into
his personal possession, no such transactions were found.
Since the release
of the audit, we have attempted to obtain the documentation that supports the
findings. The auditor refuses to provide the names of the clerks who are
referenced in the findings as having processed the transactions, and the Oak
Ridge Schools refuse to turn over any documentation on the basis that we are
not Tennessee residents. They have informed us that if we recruit the
assistance of a Tennessee resident, they will charge no less than $2,000 for this information we have requested.
We will seek out alternatives and clarification in the coming weeks.
At this point, we see
no reason to believe that these findings directly or definitively prove that
Alex did anything wrong. To start, the suggestion that Alex purchased for himself an iPad “that was
not discussed with or approved by his supervisor” is absurd since his supervisors were very aware of it because
there are a number of work emails that contain the phrase “sent from my iPad.” We
also found where his supervisor, Karen Gagliano, acknowledges his possession of
the iPad in this email discussion they had just 10 days before he died.
As we have
explained elsewhere, most of the charges that were questioned are attributable to his educational expenses
(he was a graduate student.) Alex took this job in large part because he had an
agreement with Dr. Tom Bailey that the school system would help pay for his
continuing education. According to the auditor, Dr. Bailey was included in these
audit discussions. We would like to know if he acknowledged this agreement but
presume that he did not or it would not have been annotated in the findings.
Because two of the
findings rely heavily on the claim made by Karen Gagliano that Alex used her signature stamp without her permission, we have requested a copy of the log
that would track whomever had access to it.
This log may be key in establishing the veracity of Ms. Gagliano’s claim
since, according to at least one past employee, her signature stamp was easily
accessible and used by most of the accounting office.
We also know that both
Gagliano and Bailey’s signature stamps (and possibly software, banking data and
digital fingerprints) may have gone missing for a two week period about four
months before Alex died. Anderson County Clerk, Tyler Mayes has declined to
provide us with the court documents that explain how these internal items came
into the possession of Gina Austin, the creator of over $6,000 worth of
counterfeit checks. Mr. Mayes, did, however, verify that the Board of Education
Chairman, Keys Fillauer, was also the sitting Grand Jury Foreman at the time (and has
been since 2006) who Alex may have been
testifying in this case.
We
believe that Ms. Austin may have had an inside connection into the school
administration. Given the security breaches that Alex was trying to correct, even in the last
week of his life, maybe that connecting person knows more about the events detailed in Dr. Bailey’s memo
to police two days after Alex died. Maybe that person was someone Alex had
identified or was on the verge of identifying when he was cooperating with
multiple anti-fraud efforts. We may never know because of the high level of secrecy involved in Grand Jury Proceedings. Therefore, we publicly call upon Mr. Fillauer to help us understand his role on both bodies and the details that Mr. Mayes refuses to provide.
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