Hamlet and Olesia Garcia live just two blocks from the Montgomery County line. But for the Somerton husband and wife, that short distance could mean a long battle in suburban criminal court and a steep kindergarten bill.
On Aug. 30, suburban authorities arrested the Philadelphia couple on theft and conspiracy charges, alleging that they sent their 6-year-old daughter to a Lower Moreland Township public school last fall and spring, but didn’t pay the $10,753 in fees required of non-township residents.
The Garcias fraudulently used the address of Olesia Garcia’s father on school enrollment paperwork, according to Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman. The father — who is 6-year-old Fiorella Garcia’s grandfather — lives in Lower Moreland, about three blocks outside the city.
“These defendants essentially stole from every hard-working taxpayer who resides within the Lower Moreland School District by lying about the true location of their home,” Ferman said. “School taxes are a difficult burden that most residents pay without complaint, but the Garcias instead chose to steal to further their child’s education.”
In court filings, investigators claimed that Fiorella Garcia spent all of last school year in kindergarten at Lower Moreland’s Pine Road Elementary School, 3737 Pine Road. The Garcias allegedly told the suburban school district that the girl lived on the 3900 block of Brookdale Ave., about two blocks from the school.
School officials first became suspicious of the girl’s true place of residence when Olesia Garcia’s stepmother — who also lives at the Brookdale Avenue home — received a Valentine’s Day card in the mail that young Fiorella had made for her parents in class. The stepmother returned the card to the school and reported that neither Fiorella nor her parents lived in her home.
The stepmother further reported that the Garcias lived on Philmont Terrace, near Tomlinson Road, in the Somerton section of Northeast Philly. That home is less than two miles from the school.
A school district investigator conducted surveillance of the Brookdale Avenue home on several mornings in April and determined that the girl did not leave from her grandfather’s house on her way to school each morning.
The investigator then went to the Philmont Terrace address and allegedly saw a car parked there that Hamlet Garcia routinely used to take his daughter to school.
When school officials and Lower Moreland police confronted the Garcias with the allegations, the couple claimed that they had been separated during the school year and that Olesia and her daughter lived at the Brookdale Avenue home for months, according to court filings.
Yet, authorities claim, the couple was unable to provide any documentation that either the girl or her mother actually lived in Lower Moreland.
Both parents are free on $10,000 unsecured bail pending a Sept. 6 preliminary hearing in Willow Grove. ••
