Toms River School Superintendent, Michael Ritacco, makes $234,000 a year, has been subject of controversy as of late for allegedly accepting bribes from padded district contracts. Today, after claiming he had done nothing wrong for weeks, Ritacco has turned himself into the FBI in Newark on these charges.
This turn of event stems from testimony heard in Federal court a few days ago that implicated a certain district executive who was not named at the time, but speculation all pointed at Ritacco. The witness claimed that Ritacco had demanded kickbacks in return for hiring certain service providers. He also demanded that he be paid in cash, naturally.
Last night, Federal Agents and the IRS raided Ritacco’s home, while Ritacco was (supposedly) on his way to his lawyer’s office to calculate his surrender. While potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars were lost to this slimy individual, it seems that at least one blemish on the face of New Jersey’s public school system has been removed.
