She is certainly a mourning individual.
Since 2016, Brooklyn metropolis classroom aide Andrea Sirico has requested bereavement go away for a surprising 21 lifeless kin laid to relaxation.
However typically the one factor buried was the reality: She solid greater than 12 funeral letters for companies that by no means occurred, the Particular Commissioner of Investigation for metropolis colleges discovered.
Sirico, 40, a paraprofessional at PS K369, stated the dearly departed included her fiance, six uncles, six aunts, two grandfathers, a grandfather’s homosexual lover, two cousins, a father-in-law, and two kin whose names couldn’t be discerned, a newly launched SCI report says.
Every phony funeral, SCI alleges, let Sirico receives a commission whereas skipping one to 2 days of labor at her college, a Okay-12 program at varied Brooklyn websites for 509 college students with autism, cognitive disabilities and emotional disturbances.
Sirico, who obtained $55,460 in wage final college yr, collected at the least $1,960.95 for bogus bereavement days, the SCI tallied.
“It’s not solely unethical, however she let down the special-needs youngsters who depend on her,” stated a PS 369 trainer. “If she’s absent, the children have to regulate to a substitute — if one is assigned.”
Apart from 11 faux funerals, investigators couldn’t verify or refute the existence of one other 5 for which Sirico requested paid break day as a result of the kin’ names had been illegible.
The SCI discovered that 5 of the funerals did happen, however the company “takes no place on whether or not Sirico was current at any” of them.
In its report, the SCI redacts the names of lifeless kin cited by Sirico, and doesn’t say which of them truly existed and handed away.
The macabre investigation started in December 2024, when a college staffer processing Sirico’s newest “Dying within the Household” go away seen that she had requested “a suspiciously giant variety of such go away days.”
The staffer seemed into Sirico’s letter from Cobble Hill Chapels stating that she had attended a funeral there. When the staffer known as Cobble Hill, a funeral director stated he had not offered companies for the individual Sirico listed.
The SCI discovered many puzzling inconsistencies within the funeral attendance letters Sirico offered beneath the letterheads of Cobble Hill Chapels and three different Brooklyn funeral properties, the report says.
Amongst them:
The final title of Sirico’s lifeless fiance’ and a grandfather had been illegible on her paperwork, so couldn’t be confirmed.
Sirico didn’t title her father-in-law. The report doesn’t clarify how she had a father-in-law if her fiance died.
The identical title was listed as an “aunt” and “uncle” in separate letters.
One funeral letter listed companies for her uncle, though it indicated the deceased was her grandfather. Sirico stated “she had been raised by her grandfather and (the deceased) had been her grandfather’s homosexual lover.”
Sirico couldn’t clarify why Cobble Hill Chapels had no report of 11 of the 16 funeral companies she claimed to attend there.
Lastly, when questioned about two funeral letters that named the identical aunt, Sirico “grew to become combative,” known as the interview unfair and ended it.
Funeral properties couldn’t clarify how anybody may have fabricated the attendance letters.
“We don’t present false funeral letters,” stated Thomas Tuffey, a lawyer for Cobble Hill Chapels.
A DOE worker since 2014, Sirico had a disciplinary assembly and was terminated as of June 11, officers informed The Put up, including the company will demand reimbursement of the $1,960 that SCI discovered Sirico was paid beneath false pretenses.
“We at all times maintain our educators and employees to the best normal,” DOE spokeswoman Nicole Brownstein stated.
Reached by cellphone, Sirico wouldn’t talk about the allegations, saying “I didn’t know I used to be beneath investigation.”
