Dive Brief:

• Shortly after Scott Unger was hired in 2022 as director of facilities for the Lawrence Union Free School District in New York, he stopped making payments to a vendor servicing HVAC systems at district schools. The maintenance emergency that resulted when the vendor stopped work enabled Unger to use no-bid rules to steer the contracts to a company he created with an accomplice, Joseph Greenblatt, says Nassau County District Attorney Anne Donnelly in an indictment summary released June 4.
• “Scott Unger decided he wanted a bigger payday from his new position directing facility operations at the Lawrence School District and allegedly, with the help of his co-conspirator Joseph Greenblatt, twisted the district’s contracting process to fit his needs and line both of their pockets,” said Donnelly. “Unger and Greenblatt used lies and manipulation to remove the competition and position themselves to take over school district contracts.”
• Neither Unger nor Greenblatt responded immediately to a request for comment through their attorneys. In a statement to Patch, a local news source, Greenblatt’s attorney Michael Soshnick said his client is innocent. “In the fullness of time, he will be fully exonerated," Soshnick said.

Dive Insight:

The Lawrence Union Free School District hired Unger in October 2022. In February 2023 he stopped paying Hi Tech Air Conditioning Service for HVAC work it was doing for the school district.

Unger “ignored repeated attempts by Hi Tech to seek payment for work it already performed,” Donnelly said.  

A month after the work stoppage, the board overseeing the school district passed a resolution authorizing Unger to bypass the regular bidding process. “The emergency was such that it ‘cannot await competitive bidding or competitive offering,’ the LUFSD Board of Education said in its resolution, according to the DA’s indictment summary.   

Unger used the authority to sign a contract with SDF Service Plus, a company that Unger and Greenblatt created just a month earlier for the purpose of taking over Hi Tech’s contracts, the DA said.

“SDF had performed no work for any other customer and did not perform any work after its contract with [the school district],” the DA said. “The company had no liability or Workers’ Compensation insurance. For the [HVAC] project, SDF hired employees that had previously worked on the same project for Hi Tech.”

Unger used another company he created, called Scott Mitchell Management, to disguise his involvement. “Unger’s financial interest in SDF … would have prohibited the company from contracting with the school district,” the DA said. 

Donnelly also alleged that Unger manipulated later bidding processes to ensure that only SDF would be awarded bids, which had been price-fixed and prepared to specifications by Unger in advance. 

Between June 2023 and April 2024, the school district paid SDF just over $2 million, with about $185,000 of that going to Unger through SMM. After one payment to SMM of almost $80,000, Unger bought a 2024 Kia Telluride for $61,123 and registered the vehicle in his name, the DA said. The car and multiple bank accounts linked to the defendants have since been seized. 

The defendants were arraigned June 4 before Judge Robert Schwartz of the New York Supreme Court. Unger faces two felony grand jury indictment charges for corruption and conspiracy and six misdemeanors for official misconduct and one for disclosure of interest. Greenblatt faces two felony charges for corruption and conspiracy and one misdemeanor for official misconduct. 

Unger and Greenblatt are directed to appear back in court in July. They face between eight and 25 years in prison if theyre convicted, the DA said.