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Teacher denies taking money

As much as $3,000 in yearbook payments disappeared while he was supervisor.

By Times Staff Writer
Published August 27, 2005

A former Lakewood High School language arts teacher was arrested Wednesday and accused of keeping anywhere from $300 to $3,000 he had collected for school yearbooks.

Jason Pafundi, 26, supervised the publication of Lakewood's yearbook last year. He resigned in December while he was under investigation. Pafundi, who was hired in 2002 and lives in Palm Harbor, was charged with scheming to defraud, a third-degree felony. He was released from the Pinellas County jail on $5,000 bail.

School officials determined that students and parents who paid $50 for the yearbook in the fall of 2004 received them. But between $300 and $3,000, most of it cash payments for the yearbooks, was unaccounted for when receipts were tabulated, officials said. The exact amount has yet to be determined.

Kym Rivellini, Pafundi's attorney, said her client didn't take the money and has cooperated with investigators from the beginning.

Pafundi became overwhelmed with other duties at school, Rivellini said, and when the yearbook money disappeared, he put about $2,500 into the account.

"He never made any admission to taking it," Rivellini said. "He did acknowledge that the money disappeared on his watch."

Pafundi wrote a youth sports column in Pinellas County and covered Little League and high school sports events as a freelance writer for the St. Petersburg Times. The paper will no longer publish his work unless the matter is cleared up to its satisfaction.

Pafundi's father is the school district's director of risk management and insurance, and his mother is a teacher at Palm Harbor University High School.

[Last modified August 27, 2005, 01:13:13]