Fired Riverhead recreation head confesses to falsifying independent audit report

Longtime Riverhead parks chief Ray Coyne lost his six-figure job over an $8,000 stipend fight after officials found he faked an outside accounting report and then lied about who wrote it, according to newly released disciplinary records.

The records, obtained by the Riverhead News-Review on Wednesday through a Freedom of Information Law request, show Mr. Coyne used artificial intelligence tools last year to create what he presented as an independent forensic accounting review after learning his annual stipend could be removed from the 2026 town budget.

The Town Board fired Mr. Coyne on Tuesday at a special meeting after hearing officer Robert Draffin delivered the bombshell findings, the News-Review previously reported.

Mr. Draffin’s probe found that Mr. Coyne, who had worked for the town since 2005, falsely claimed the report was prepared by Anthony J. Mancini, CPA, CFF, of Mancini Forensic Accounting & Advisory Group, PLLC. In reality, Mr. Coyne wrote the report himself using AI tools, according to the records.

“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,” Mr. Draffin wrote.

The case grew out of a long-running fight over the town’s A06 Recreation Programs Fund. Mr. Coyne argued the Parks and Recreation Department was making money and that town accounting practices made it appear otherwise, the records show.

He faced one charge of insubordination and/or misconduct with four specifications, including using non-public town material in the report, falsely presenting it as the work of an outside accounting firm and later lying to town officials about who prepared it.

But the hearing officer found the accounting fight was not what cost Mr. Coyne his job. It was his “deception.”

“In determining the penalty based on my findings of guilt of the Respondent on three of the four specifications within the charge, it is by far the deception that was employed in Specifications 3 and 4 that carry the most weight,” Mr. 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.”

Mr. Coyne declined to comment on his firing Wednesday on the advice of his attorney, Adam Weiss. It is not clear whether he plans to appeal the board’s decision.

The parks boss learned late last year that the $8,000 stipend, which he’s received since 2013, “may be removed and reallocated to a subordinate’s compensation,” according to a Dec. 22, 2025, email he sent to members of the Town Board and newly elected Supervisor Jerry Halpin, who was among the four board members who voted to can Mr. Coyne on Tuesday.

Council members were set to approve salaries for various town employees and departments at the first meeting of the year on Jan. 6. Mr. Coyne’s annual compensation was listed as $137,948, according to the adopted resolution.

In his email sent before the meeting, Mr. Coyne said eliminating his stipend “would unilaterally alter” his pay structure, “despite no change in role or responsibility,” according to records.

“I believe this would be both unfair and — given the long-standing precedent — potentially unlawful,” the parks superintendent wrote.

Mr. Coyne then told the Town Board he had hired Mr. Mancini to conduct an external forensic audit of the A06 fund, which claimed the Parks and Recreation Department was not operating at a year-to-year loss, but was instead growing.

Hiring an outside consultant to review possible confidential information quickly raised red flags within Town Hall.

Personnel director Ashley Striplin-Tio pressed him about the audit at the end of January, leading Mr. Coyne to admit in a Feb. 4 email that he had written the report himself.

The Town Board later appointed Mr. Draffin to oversee disciplinary proceedings. He held hearings March 18 and April 21.

At the March 18 hearing, Town Attorney Erik Howard testified that he had met Jan. 7 with Mr. Coyne, Chief of Staff Debi Burkowsky and Ms. Striplin-Tio to discuss the purported outside audit. Mr. Howard testified he believed the report relied on sensitive details not available to the public, including internal town emails, payroll data and retirement-related information.  

Mr. Coyne claimed the accountant was a family member and said he had provided only public documents, according to hearing records.

“I Googled the name Anthony J. Mancini and I wasn’t able to find anyone,” Mr. Howard said during the hearing. “And I wasn’t able to find any information about this accounting and advisory group.”

Records show Mr. Coyne admitted using artificial intelligence tools to help write the report.

In arguing for Mr. Coyne’s dismissal, Mr. Howard said a department head who created a fraudulent document to advance his own compensation could no longer be trusted by town officials.

“When you demonstrate that you have the capability of producing a fraudulent document and producing a fraudulent document in furtherance of your own compensation, I don’t believe that there is any level of trust that an elected person can put in that individual going forward,” Mr. Howard testified.

When asked by attorney Richard Zuckerman, the town’s legal counsel, why he owned up to his lie, Mr. Coyne said he wanted to “come clean.”

Mr. Coyne said he wrote the report to give his long-running complaints about the recreation fund more credibility, not to mislead the board, according to records.

“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,” Mr. Coyne said at the April 21 hearing. “And I quickly realized that it was a mistake, and I felt horrible about it.”

He also claimed that he had been told part of the stipend would go to Assistant Parks Superintendent Ashley Schandel and the rest would go to the general fund. But he said Ms. Schandel never received the money.

“The assistant superintendent never saw half of that stipend, so I still don’t understand why it was taken from me, but it had nothing to do with the report,” he testified at the April 21 hearing.

Ms. Schandel, who since been put in charge of the department after Mr. Coyne’s ouster, defended her former boss’ budgetary concerns at the hearing.

“Ray had a fine-tuned equation to break down our programs to always ensure that our programs were making money,” she testified. “We won’t run programs if they don’t make money.”

In pushing for Mr. Coyne’s dismissal, the town’s counsel alleged this was not the first time Mr. Coyne had been disciplined for “misrepresenting the truth.” The town claimed he previously modified an employee’s time and attendance records so they did not accurately reflect time worked.

It also alleged instances of insubordinate behavior from Mr. Coyne under three different past supervisors on five separate occasions, ranging from “poor judgment” to “failure to carry out directives.”

Mr. Draffin found the parks head faced serious misconduct charges in June 2019, which he accepted responsibility for and agreed to a 14-day suspension without pay.

As for the current probe, Mr. Draffin ruled that Mr. Coyne did not violate the rule requiring Town Board approval before retaining an outside consultant because no outside consultant was actually retained. But he found Mr. Coyne guilty of the other three specifications.

“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,” the hearing officer stated.

Mr. Coyne’s defense argued that termination was too harsh, pointing to his 20 years of service, his accomplishments and praise from coworkers. His attorney Mr. Weiss argued the conduct caused no harm and that firing Mr. Coyne would “shock the conscience.”

Before the disciplinary findings were obtained by the News-Review, more than 200 community members signed a petition in support of Mr. Coyne, requesting his termination be rescinded.

Another witness, Dwayne Eleazer, founder of the Stop the Violence basketball tournament and a member of the town’s Recreation Advisory Committee, called Mr. Coyne’s integrity “impeccable.”

Riverhead Town Clerk Jim Wooten testified as one of Mr. Coyne’s witnesses and described the parks chief as “a man of his word.” However, when Mr. Zuckerman hypothetically asked if a department head lying to him personally would it impact that working relationship, Mr. Wooten responded: “absolutely.”

“Once trust breaks down, everything else breaks down,” Mr. Wooten testified.

Editor’s Note: This story has been updated.