Sorry I Got Caught

A former Long Islands schools chief Frank Tassone pleaded guilty Monday to grand larceny charges for what the state comptroller has called the "most extraordinary theft" from a school system "in American history."
An audit by state Comptroller Alan Hevesi earlier this year found that $11.2 million had been pilfered from the school district between 1996 and 2004, although prosecutors have only been able to charge four people so far with stealing slightly less than $7 million.
The money was allegedly used to pay for flights aboard the Concorde for vacations in England, and mortgage payments for homes in Florida, the Hamptons and Pennsylvania. More than $1 million allegedly was stolen via ATM cash advances and prosecutors said the defendants even had their dry cleaning and cable TV bills picked up by taxpayers.

Admitting that he took millions in taxpayer money to finance a lavish lifestyle that included European jaunts on the supersonic Concorde, Tassone reads an apology to the court; “I will make restitution to the Roslyn schools and I am sorry for my poor judgment."
Now there is a delightful bit of double speak to add to the language of corruption. Here the man was caught with his hand in the cookie barrel, and pleads guilty; to what? Guilty to ‘just borrowing’ the cash for a bit? A loan he fully intends to pay back? Was his ‘poor judgment’ that he forgot to tell the school district that he was just going to borrow their money? Was his poor judgment that he didn’t cover his tracks properly and was caught?
Let’s be honest here! Mr Tassone STOLE millions of dollars in taxpayer money to finance a lavish lifestyle. He pinched, theived, embezzled, purloined the loot. It is common theft.
Surely the victims of public theft deserve their apology to be expressed in real language, not double speak. Mr Tassone is a thief, pure and simple. Nothing glosses over that fact.