Charter founder under investigation commits suicide
Philadelphia Academy Charter School founder Brien N. Gardiner, under federal investigation in connection with his management of the school, committed suicide this afternoon, Lower Moreland police said.
Philadelphia Academy Charter School founder Brien N. Gardiner, under federal investigation in connection with his management of the school, committed suicide this afternoon, Lower Moreland police said.
Township detective John Pasqueal said it appeared that Gardiner died of a self-inflicted gunshot in the parking lot of the Bethayres Train station, at about 1:20 p.m. The train station is about a mile from Gardiner's home on Kent Road in Philadelphia, Pasqueal said. He died in the parking lot, Pasqueal said.
Pasqueal said that police are withholding details, including whether Gardiner left a suicide note.
Gardiner, 64, founded Philadelphia Academy in 1999; he also opened the Northwood Academy Charter School in 2005 and at one time was chief executive of both charters.
He later became a consultant at Philadelphia Academy. that contract was terminated last spring, after the Inquirer disclosed that the Philadelphia school district's inspector general was investigating allegations of financial mismanagement, nepotism, and conflicts of interest at the school.
A federal criminal investigation of Gardiner and of former chief executive officer Kevin M. O'Shea, who had replaced Gardiner as the head of the school, was also launched in the spring.
No indictments or arrests have taken place. Patricia Hartman, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office today declined comment. Sources with knowledge of the investigation said that indictments stemming from the investigation were imminent.
Last July, an internal report to the board of the school by former federal prosecutor Henry E. Hockeimer and other attorneys at Ballard Spahr Andrews & Ingersoll L.L.P., alleged that Gardiner and O'Shea had systematically looted the school for personal gain.
The report said that more than $700,000 was missing from a school account and cited "substantial evidence of wrongdoing" by Gardiner, a former public school principal who founded the popular charter in Northeast Philadelphia, and O'Shea, a former police officer.