New indictment yields white collar crime, fraud, theft chargers for charter school companies
A charter school management company and two of its vendor companies face newly filed white collar crime charges, based on three indictments a grand jury handed down this week.
Newpoint Education, which had managed two San Jose charter schools in Jacksonville and 13 more charter schools across the state, is charged now with aggravated white collar crime and organized fraud. The new charges cover more counties in Florida than prior charges filed last year in the case.
Newpoint, a for-profit charter management company, was founded by Marcus May, who faces his own criminal charges along with an associate, Steven Kunkemoeller.
Authorities say May and Kunkemoeller funneled public money from the charter schools to themselves using the vendor companies Red Ignition Inc. and School Warehouse Inc., which they owned or had ties to. Those companies also face new white collar crime charges.
Through attorneys May, Kunkemoeller and the companies have pleaded not guilty.
The indictments allege the three companies and their executives stole from or defrauded the Florida Department of Education and several county public school districts, including Duval County, of hundreds of thousands of dollars, and that they used a variety of banks and financial institutions to launder the funds.
Newpoint’s charter schools in Florida received $57 million from the state and from six school districts, including Duval, between 2007 and 2016, the charges allege.
In Jacksonville, Newpoint ran the San Jose Academy and San Jose Preparatory
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