Former EPISD educators plead not Guilty to charges
EL PASO, Texas –
Five educators indicted in connection with a massive cheating scheme at El Paso Independent School District waived their right to appear before a judge Monday.
Through their attorneys, Damon Murphy, John Tanner, Diane Thomas, Mark Tegmeyer and Nancy Love pleaded not guilty to the charges against them.
Thomas, Tegmeyer and Love are all former assistant principals at Austin High School. Murphy is a former EPISD associate superintendent and John Tanner is a former Austin High School principal.
All but one resigned or were fired from EPISD. Love is a current assistant principal at Silva Magnet High School and has been placed on paid administrative leave while the investigation is ongoing. ABC-7 confirmed Monday that she had taken two weeks of personal leave before her arrest.
The five were arrested April 27. A sixth co-defendant, Former EPISD Assistant Superintendent for Secondary Education James Anderson, was arrested Monday.
Murphy, Tanner, Thomas, Tegmeyer and Love were scheduled to appear before Federal Magistrate Judge Miguel Torres Monday but they notified the court that they would waive their appearance.
The purpose of the cheating scheme headed by Former Superintendent Dr. Lorenzo Garcia was to artificially inflate student test scores by improperly promoting students or holding them back, altering their transcripts, enrolling them in the wrong grade or forcing them to drop out altogether. District administrators would then receive bonuses when the district met state and federal standards due to the bogus scores. Some of the administrators arrested over the past week face fraud and conspiracy charges. Thomas and Love are accused of conspiracy to retaliate against a witness.
Garcia was arrested in 2011 and pleaded guilty to defrauding the government in June of 2012. He also pleaded guilty to steering an expensive, no-bid district contract to his then-mistress. He served about two and a half years in prison and was released in October 2014.
One other administrator has pleaded guilty.
A director in the district’s Secondary and Priority Schools Division, Myrna Gamboa, pleaded guilty to conspiring with Garcia to manipulate test scores and create false demographics to get federal funding. She was sentenced in January of 2015 to 5 years probation. She didn’t have to do community service or wear a monitoring device, but was ordered to pay a $5,000 dollar fine.
The case has been assigned to Judge Kathleen Cardone. The defendants are due back in court May 19.
