It's a strange one in the Hamptons: The Wall Street Journal reports that a $25 gift card that went missing from a school in the hamlet of Amagansett has resulted in an investigation that has cost $25,000. Elementary school principal Maria Dorr has been accused of taking it out of the mailbox of the intended recipient, and she has been on administrative leave for more than a year. She adamantly insists on her innocence. Surveillance video presented at her disciplinary trial—Dorr demanded a public hearing—shows her leaving the Amagansett School mailroom with a red envelope the morning the card disappeared. Damning evidence? Not quite, because as principal, she also received gift cards, and even produced a red envelope from one to prove it.
The intrigue goes much, much deeper. The now-retired school receptionist instrumental in casting blame on Dorr was previously disciplined for making exaggerated claims against a former superintendent. "Cassie (Butts) has a tendency to embellish things or not tell the truth on many occasions," one school district official testified in the trial. What's more, Dorr's attorney alleges this was all a plot to burn her chances of becoming superintendent.
The man who got that job instead, Mike Rodgers, provided surveillance video time stamps of Dorr entering and leaving the mailroom to the school district official who conducted the initial investigation, even before the official had accessed the tapes himself. The latter acknowledged in his own testimony that this was not appropriate. The results of the disciplinary trial are expected to be released soon. "A lot does ride on this bull--- $25 gift card," says one parent. There's a lot to unpack, and the full Journal story does so. (Read it here.)
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