Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Double-job probe of Naomi’s beau

Last Updated: 7:37 AM, August 22, 2012
Posted: 1:38 AM, August 22, 2012

Bronx Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera’s schoolteacher boy toy is one busy guy.
After teaching all day at a Brooklyn elementary school, coaching youth sports teams and attending school functions, Tommy Torres still found time to put in several hours a day as a paid staffer at the pol’s Bronx district office, records obtained by The Post reveal.
Now Torres and his seemingly impossible dual-borough workload are the subject of a city Department of Investigation probe.
It was launched by the Schools Special Commissioner of Investigation Richard Condon “after the matter was referred by the Department of Education,” said his spokeswoman, Sara Scicluna.
UNDER A CLOUD: Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera arrives for work yesterday at her district office.
Tomas E. Gaston
UNDER A CLOUD: Assemblywoman Naomi Rivera arrives for work yesterday at her district office.
Over 10 consecutive September school days at the start of the 2010 school year, Brooklyn teacher Tommy Torres (above) also logged a whopping 40 hours at the Bronx district office of girlfriend Naomi Rivera. Torres’ timesheets and schedule are part of a new probe by city schools investigator Richard Condon into Torres’ $18,000-a-year Rivera gig.
 
Over 10 consecutive September school days at the start of the 2010 school year, Brooklyn teacher Tommy Torres (above) also logged a whopping 40 hours at the Bronx district office of girlfriend Naomi Rivera. Torres’ timesheets and schedule are part of a new probe by city schools investigator Richard Condon into Torres’ $18,000-a-year Rivera gig.
The investigation — the third this week into Rivera and her associates — comes on the heels of explosive claims, revealed in The Post, that the powerful, 49-year-old Democrat used taxpayer dough to give jobs to Torres, 35, and a now-former boyfriend, Vincent Pinela, 40.
Timesheets from Torres’ 2010 stint as a “community relations director” for Rivera show many of his hours at her district office were logged on days he also taught in Brooklyn.
He was already working as a $78,885-a-year gym teacher at PS 157 — and pulling down another $10,928 as head coach and athletic director of the Grand Street Campus — when Rivera hired him in 2010 for $1,100 a week in her Morris Park office.
Public records show he raked in $18,123 while working for Rivera, and many of his hours were logged on weekdays, when he presumably would have put in a full 6 1/2 hours at PS 157.
It is unclear whether he had coaching or athletic-director duties those days.
Timesheets from his Rivera gig, which lasted from August through December 2010, show Torres often logged between two and six hours in her office on school days.
Over 10 consecutive school days shortly after the academic year began in 2010, he left Brooklyn to put in 40 hours at Rivera’s Bronx district office, his timesheets show.
Sources said Condon’s office will be combing through Torres’ school-time records and the Rivera timesheets looking for an overlap.
Rivera, who began posting romantic pictures of Torres on her Facebook page in 2009, previously told The Post she hired the much younger man “because of his background in education.”
“During those four months, he was actively involved representing me in educational and at community events,” she said.
Before dating Torres, Rivera put another boyfriend, Pinela, on her payroll, making him the $75,000-a-year head of her nonprofit Bronx Council for Economic Development in 2006, right after they started dating. He has admitted he had no prior experience or qualifications for the job.
Pinela said that while he worked at Rivera’s crony-packed BCED, Rivera routinely used the nonprofit as a personal piggy bank, charging romantic dinners and campaign expenses to the nonprofit and hiring family members to work for it.
On Monday, the state Attorney General’s Office and the Bronx district attorney said they are investigating Rivera.
Torres could not be reached yesterday.
Rivera yesterday said in a statement, “The allegations are untrue.”
cgiove@nypost.com

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/it_work_load_of_bull_gMKqAuApkiAv8YRPsR1OhK#ixzz24HOrFDQd

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