Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast - He Stole Millions From These Kids

Episode Date: July 3, 2026

Frank Tassone a public school superintendent in Long Island, New York. Over the course of 12 years, Tassone meticulously elevated his school district to one of the top-ranked in the United States while leading a secret double life funded by the community's taxpayers. Alongside assistant superintendent Pamela Gluckin, Tassone stole over $11 million in school funds to finance luxurious vacations, expensive homes, and extensive cosmetic procedures.

What would cause a school superintendent to start stealing money from a school? Is it greed? Does he just hate the kids? What is it? So this scandal all starts with this guy, Frank. And Frank is around 49 years old during this time, living in New York. And Frank, he likes looking and feeling rich. And he's got a good job. I mean, he's the superintendent of a pretty well-off school district, and he makes around $200,000 a year. And that's good money, especially in the 90s. But $200,000 a year isn't enough for Frank. He apparently wants more. So one day in 1996, he gets an idea that's going to help him make more.

He's just going to start stealing money from the school district's $83 million budget. So he links up with one of his coworkers, this woman, Pam. And Pam is the assistant superintendent and the business administrator of their school district, which means she oversees all the district's finances. Now, Frank, his theft starts out small, like he charges his breakfast bagels and his personal lunches to the school district's account. Sometimes he'll charge them for his dry cleaning bills or his personal holiday greeting cards, but eventually Pam gets them school district credit cards,

and she and Frank use these credit cards to buy themselves whatever they want. Like Frank buys himself expensive suits and nice cars and jewelry, because remember, he wants that rich lifestyle. He also gets himself a little plastic surgery, like, you know, to make himself look better. He takes trips to Las Vegas, to gamble, he stays in five-star hotels, he takes vacations to Boston and New Orleans and the Caribbean and Paris and Thailand. He takes $43,000 worth of flights to London on the very expensive Concord Supersonic airliner. He spends $56,000 of public school funds on a specialized clinical weight loss program. That's an expensive weight loss program, damn. And to make it worse,

he also uses the credit cards to withdraw cash. Like he just straight up withdrawals like a thousand dollars a day, just to like have. But even after all that, this still isn't enough for Frank. He wants more. So he starts up a fake business called word power and he makes his boyfriend the CEO and he awards about $800,000 in fake contracts to this business for consulting and other services, and he pays them with the school's money, aka he pays himself. Meanwhile, Pam, she's also living it up. She's spending all the district's money on herself, too. Now, regarding those school district credit cards, she goes a little crazy with those. Like she's already given 24 to Frank and 23 to herself. But she also gives these credit cards,

to her friends and family just to like spend as they wish and she gives them out to people in her administrative office that she works with just to make sure that they don't snitch on her because you know then they'd be snitching on themselves too now in total Pam gives out 74 school district credit cards to people so now you have dozens of her friends and family running around spending the school district's money to buy their own personal shit and so in total over the course of six years she and and Frank have stolen more than $11 million from the district. And, you know, that's cool and all, I guess. But here's where things start to fall apart.

So it's now 2002. And one day, Pam's adult son decides to take a trip to Home Depot to buy some construction materials for his contracting business. And when he goes to pay for his stuff, he uses a credit card in the school district's name that his mom had given him. So he's like buying shit for his business, using the school's money. The thing is, this Home Depot isn't near the school district, which is in Long Island. This Home Depot is about 35 to 40 miles away. And the clerk,

ringing him up, notices this. And this clerk also notices that the sun is filling out the paperwork to have the construction materials delivered to a private residence far away, a facility, not anywhere near the school district. And so this clerk gets really suspicious. And later, He calls the school district's administrative office directly, and he's like, why are you having construction materials delivered to a private residence so far away from the district? And this phone call triggers an internal audit. And soon, the school board discovers that Pam's son has been buying shit with a school district credit card to the tune of about $250,000, and that Pam likely gave him this card.

And once word gets back to Frank, he immediately starts to pay. panic. Because what if the school district finds out that this wasn't just a few school district credit cards worth $250,000, but that he and Pam actually stole $11 million. So he goes to the school board and he makes his case and he convinces them to go lenient on Pam, that they should allow her to pay back the $250,000 and that then she can just resign quietly. Otherwise, if the story goes public, the school district will look like its own employees are stealing from the taxpayers and that would make all of them look bad. And so the school board agrees. And so Pam ends up paying back $250,000 and she quietly resigns. And the school board doesn't report her to the police,

so no charges are pressed against her. And so it looks like that's the end of it. No more trouble for her or for Frank. This spring, Denham gets a softer, lighter update. Introducing Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg, a new fit that moves with you. It's everything you want denim to feel like for summer. Easy, breathable, and effortlessly cool. With a fit that creates natural movement and a wide leg that feels modern, not overwhelming. Plus, that signature, wait, for this price, moment. Old Navy's drapey denim wide leg.

On two. A couple of years go by, and it's now 2004. And that is when this girl enters the story. Her name's Rebecca. And Rebecca, she's a senior at one of the high schools in the district. And she also works for the school paper. And one day, Rebecca somehow comes across some information. That a school admin, Pam, had stolen $250,000 from the district

and that the district covered it up and allowed her to quietly resign. And Rebecca's like, well, I got to look into this. And so she investigates the hell out. out of all of this. She starts going to some school board meetings and doing all these interviews with people. And so now the admins know that she's looking into this and that she's likely about to write a story.

So the admins come to her and they demand that she leave Pam's name out of the story. So they're saying she can publish it, but don't name Pam personally. They claim it would violate some kind of privacy laws protecting Pam or something. It doesn't. But Rebecca also submits a formal,

Freedom of Information Act request to view the district's physical bank records and credit card receipts. And the school admins stonewall her, and they drag out the whole bureaucratic process to ensure that the files won't be released until long after her printing deadline has passed. Regardless, Rebecca writes the story and doesn't include Pam's name and she doesn't include the bank records that she wanted, but the article does get published in her school newspaper. And this blows the story up. Because actual professional working journalists read and catch on to the scandal and they write about it in their news publications, including Newsday and the New York Times. And this puts pressure on the county district attorney to launch a criminal investigation.

And of course, the school board hires an auditor as well. And during all these investigations, they discover that it wasn't just Pam who had taken $250,000, that it was closer to $11 million. dollars and the district's own superintendent Frank was at the center of it. And so, bam, Frank is arrested. And I couldn't find his mugshot, but here he is being arrested. Also, bam, Pam is arrested too. Here's a picture of her. And so ultimately, Frank takes a plea deal and he gets sentenced to four to 12 years in prison, while Pam also takes a plea deal and she gets sentenced to three to nine years in prison. But the craziest part is that because both Frank and Pam worked for the school district for so long, they are still legally entitled to their pension.

So every year, Frank gets paid about $173,000 from the district, while Pam gets paid about $55,000 from the district. Taxpayer funded. That's crazy.