Riverhead’s longtime parks and recreation superintendent fabricated an “independent forensic accounting review” and falsely attributed it to an outside accounting firm in an attempt to persuade Town Board members not to eliminate his $8,000 annual stipend, according to a hearing officer’s findings obtained by RiverheadLOCAL under the Freedom of Information Law.
The Town Board voted 4-0 Tuesday to accept the hearing officer’s findings and terminate Ray Coyne, the town’s superintendent of parks and recreation since 2005. Council Member Bob Kern abstained. The resolution adopted by the board did not identify Coyne by name and the hearing officer’s findings were not made public at the meeting. See prior story.
The seven-page determination by hearing officer Robert E. Draffin, dated June 15, found Coyne guilty of three of four disciplinary specifications filed against him under N.Y. Civil Service Law §75. Draffin recommended upholding Coyne’s 30-day suspension without pay and terminating his employment.
Draffin found that Coyne authored the accounting report himself, with the assistance of artificial intelligence tools, while representing it as an independent review prepared by Anthony J. Mancini, CPA, CFF, of Mancini Forensic Accounting & Advisory Group, PLLC.
The report concerned the town’s A06 Recreation Programs Fund — the fund used for recreation program revenues and expenses — and argued that the parks and recreation department was not operating at a deficit, but that accounting practices by the town’s finance department made it appear that way.
Coyne and his attorney argued that the report grew out of a yearslong dispute over how recreation revenues and expenses were accounted for, that no outside consultant was actually retained, that no town funds were spent, that the report was not released to the public and that termination was too severe for a department head with 20 years of service.
Draffin rejected the town’s claim that Coyne violated a requirement to obtain Town Board approval before retaining an outside consultant, because no outside consultant was actually retained. But he found Coyne guilty of using confidential town material in preparing the report and of lying about who prepared it, both in the report itself and during a Jan. 7 investigatory meeting with town officials.
“It is by far the deception that was employed in Specifications 3 and 4 that carry the most weight,” Draffin wrote. “Whether or not the Respondent was correct in his years long dispute over the accounting in the Town’s A06 Recreation Programs Fund is not relevant. However, the way he ultimately went about it through lies and deception is.”
A report tied to Coyne’s stipend
The disciplinary case centered on an accounting report Coyne circulated in December, after learning the Town Board was considering eliminating an $8,000 annual stipend he had received since 2013.
In a Dec. 22 email to board members, Coyne wrote that he had been told the stipend might be removed and reallocated to a subordinate’s compensation, according to Draffin’s findings.
“This would unilaterally alter my pay structure, despite no change in role or responsibility,” Coyne wrote, according to the determination. “I believe this would be both unfair and — given the long-standing precedent — potentially unlawful.”
Coyne then told board members he had “retained an independent forensic accounting firm” and asked them to “reconsider any proposal to eliminate this stipend in the January vote,” Draffin wrote.
“This is clearly the motive underlying his deceit of the four Town Board Trustees along with the newly elected Town Supervisor,” Draffin wrote.
At the March 18 hearing, Town Attorney Erik Howard testified that the purported outside review raised immediate concerns because there had been no Town Board resolution authorizing the retention of an accounting firm and no professional services agreement governing the scope of work, ownership of work product or confidentiality of town records.
Howard testified that the report appeared to rely on internal town emails, payroll data and retirement-related information. He said ADP payroll reports and retirement system participation flags are not public records.
Coyne later acknowledged that he authored the report himself.
In a Feb. 4 email to personnel officer Ashley Striplin-Tio, Coyne wrote, “although Anthony Mancini does exist, I authored the report in its entirety and take full responsibility for all of its contents,” according to the town’s opening statement and Draffin’s determination.
Coyne: ‘I wanted to come clean’
Coyne testified April 21 that he prepared the report because he believed the finance department had long mischaracterized recreation program finances and because three new Town Board members needed to understand the issue.
He said he had been working on the report before the stipend issue came up, and that his intent was to educate board members about the A06 fund, not to mislead them.
Coyne testified that he hand-delivered the report to Council Members Denise Merrifield and Joann Waski and emailed it to Kern, who was his board liaison. He said he also showed it to Assistant Superintendent Ashley Schandel and employee Jordan Harden. He said he did not distribute it publicly.
“I used public available material off the Town’s website,” Coyne testified. He said he also used his “operational knowledge as superintendent” and summaries of emails.
Asked why he later acknowledged that he wrote the report, Coyne said, “My conscience.”
“I only — I just wanted to make the report have weight because all of the other reports authored by me was not — it was ignored for the most part,” Coyne testified. “And I quickly realized that was a mistake. And I felt horrible about it. And I wanted to come clean.”
Coyne testified that the report was intended only for “educational and clarification purposes with Town Board members only.”
But on cross-examination, Coyne acknowledged that the report’s cover identified Mancini Forensic Accounting & Advisory Group, PLLC as the author, although the firm had nothing to do with the report.
Asked whether that was a lie, Coyne called it a “misrepresentation.”
“I wasn’t intending to mislead the council people in any way, shape or form,” Coyne testified.
Draffin also noted that Coyne testified “without contradiction” that he authored the report himself, with help from artificial intelligence tools.
During cross-examination, Coyne said he used artificial intelligence in preparing the report, including Claude, NotebookLM by Google and an accounting AI tool. He testified that some exhibits submitted on his behalf were prepared by him and AI.
Recreation programs fund dispute
Coyne and his witnesses described the underlying A06 fund dispute as long-running.
Schandel, who has worked in the department since 2013 and became assistant superintendent in 2025, testified that recreation department staff had raised concerns for years that the finance department was charging salaries, benefits and other personnel costs to the recreation revenue fund in a way that made programs appear to be losing money.
She testified that the department’s position was that recreation programs were making money, but that accounting practices showed the department in deficit.
“We won’t run programs if they don’t make money,” Schandel testified.
Schandel said she agreed with Coyne’s position on the A06 accounting issue. She also said she had no concerns about Coyne’s commitment to his job, his ability to lead the department or his truthfulness.
Coyne testified that under his leadership, the recreation department grew from about 50 programs to about 150, increased annual revenue from $582,000 in 2006 to more than $1 million in 2024 and increased participation from roughly 2,500 to 2,800 participants when he started to as many as 5,500.
Draffin credited Coyne’s record of service, writing that he was “obviously a truly knowledgeable man in his field and his department” with “many accomplishments to his credit throughout his 20-year career with the Town.” He also wrote that Coyne was “well liked by his subordinates as well as members of the Riverhead Community.”
But Draffin concluded that Coyne’s service record did not overcome the dishonesty at the center of the disciplinary charges.
“The preponderance of evidence presented by the Town shows that the Respondent clearly has lost the trust needed to effectively work with the Town Supervisor and the Town Board,” Draffin wrote.
Town sought termination
Howard testified that termination was the appropriate penalty because the conduct involved a fraudulent document submitted to elected officials to influence their decision-making, and because the purpose appeared to be tied to Coyne’s own compensation.
“The department heads are in a position where they are put in charge of specific departments of the Town reporting to the Town Board and are there to assist the Town Board in their responsibilities to administer the Town and protect the taxpayers, the taxpayers and resxidents’ money,” Howard testified. “That requires implicit trust in those department heads.”
Howard said that when a department head demonstrates “the capability of producing a fraudulent document” in furtherance of his own compensation, “I don’t believe that there is any level of trust that an elected person can put in that individual going forward.”
The town also introduced prior disciplinary records for the penalty phase of the hearing. Draffin wrote that the town produced five prior occasions under three different supervisors involving allegations of misconduct, including “poor judgement,” “failure to carry out directives,” “confrontational attitude” and a letter of admonishment for “failure to act without the taint of conflict of interest.”
The most serious prior matter occurred in 2019, when Coyne was charged with insubordination and/or misconduct and misconduct and/or neglect of duty, according to Draffin’s findings. Coyne settled those charges by accepting responsibility “in sum and substance” for eight specifications and agreeing to a 14-day suspension without pay, Draffin wrote.
“I find that the Town has used progressive discipline throughout Mr. Coyne’s career, ranging from counseling through suspension leading up to the point we find ourselves today with the Town arguing in favor of his termination,” Draffin wrote.
Defense said termination was too severe
Coyne’s attorney, Adam Weiss, argued that termination would be disproportionate and would “shock the conscience,” pointing to Coyne’s 20 years of service, his accomplishments and the support of employees and community members.
Weiss acknowledged during the hearing that Coyne was “guilty in part” of the charges, but said the penalty of termination was “way too severe for somebody with this level of service to the Town over a 20-year period.”
Coyne’s defense witnesses included Schandel, Harden, Dwayne Eleazer and Town Clerk James Wooten, a former town council member.
Eleazer, founder of the Stop the Violence basketball tournament and a member of the town’s recreation advisory committee, testified that he had known Coyne for about 20 years through the tournament and the advisory committee. He described Coyne’s integrity as “impeccable” and said Coyne had always been responsive to recreation-related concerns.
On cross-examination, however, Eleazer said he did not know the town had filed disciplinary charges against Coyne or that the town alleged Coyne had lied about the accounting report.
Wooten testified that he worked closely with Coyne during his 12 years on the Town Board and credited him with helping create dog parks and expand recreation programming.
But Wooten also testified that truthfulness by department heads is essential.
“Once trust breaks down, everything else breaks down,” Wooten said.
Wooten said he did not know the details of the disciplinary case and had not heard that the town alleged Coyne lied about an independent audit of the recreation department.
Coyne had been employed by the town since October 2005. He was provisionally appointed as superintendent of recreation on Oct. 11, 2005 and permanently appointed to the position on May 30, 2007, according to the hearing record.
Coyne’s annual salary for 2026 was $137,948.05, according to the Town Board resolution adopted Jan. 6 setting the salaries of general town employees.
The survival of local journalism depends on your support.
We are a small family-owned operation. You rely on us to stay informed, and we depend on you to make our work possible. Just a few dollars can help us continue to bring this important service to our community.
Support RiverheadLOCAL today.
