Ostanski Opts To Steal From School Instead; Police Chief: ‘At Least She Kept Her Pants On’

By Wad Rotson

Kenmore East Principal LuAnn Ostanski was not arrested in Ellicott Creek Park, nor was she charged with indecent exposure or public lewdness based on any of her actions inside or along any of the public bathrooms located within the Park.

A common thief = a happy Chief.

Instead, Ostanski joined a growing list of local school administrators who have admitted to more typical crimes, in this case stealing money from the very High School that employed her.

Town of Tonawanda Police Chief Charles Charmin munched on a sour-cream timbit as he explained to reporters the success of his 10-year-old public awareness campaign among school officials.

“When is the last time a school administrator pulled his pants down in Ellicott Creek Park?” asked Charmin.  “This petty offense proves that our efforts to get school administrators to commit their crimes in places other than that park has been an overwhelming success.”

Charmin described Ellicott Creek Park in the mid to late 1990s as a “toxic cesspool of sexually perverted and bathroom-obsessed school superintendents, principals and Catholic priests.”

“I couldn’t walk my dog twenty yards in that park without having two or three educators make a grab for what I refer to as my ‘other’ weapon,” said Charmin.  “I still have bruises from all of the undercover work that I did during our sting operations.  But the pain is worth it because Mrs. Ostranski decided to steal from the safe of her own school instead of using her ‘curriculum’ on some guy’s ‘mechanical pencil’ in a public place.”

Posters and flyers placed by the Tonawanda Police encouraged school administrators to learn more about other crimes they could commit as alternatives to indecent exposure.  The signs also encouraged them to find other locations besides public parks to commit their crimes.

“We put larceny at the top of the list as a crime more appropriate for a school administrator,” said Charmin.  “That and lying on your resume, which is what that Medina Superintendent opted to do instead of playing hide the sausage with a sweaty man of the cloth under one of the Park’s picnic tables.  I give these administrators a lot of credit, actually.”

Charmin, noting that “Ostranski’s $160 larceny will be yesterday’s news by Monday,” described in lurid detail how public lewdness crimes result are an act of selfishness that result in “heartache when a young child walks into a public restroom to relieve himself and witnesses an educator shoving his ‘Master’s degree’ through a hole cut in the bathroom stall.”

Charmin thinks that stealing money from your own school is “a much more socially-acceptable kind of crime that I think parents can understand, especially during these tough economic times.”

Ostanski, described by one Kenmore-East student as a “mean, pinch-bitter-faced felon that got what was coming to her for constantly hassling me about smoking in the parking lot,” had no comment.

Spud Stealing Executive Director Turns Charity Into “Steal Your Meals”

By Frank Brutus & Hardy Astrom

This Ruse scoop will run on our front page until a main course of Justice is served!

Bennett's 50,000 half-baked schemes exposed by police!

Jean Bennett has been the Executive Director for the Ken-Ton Meals on Wheels program for more than 5 years.  Her efforts to feed the elderly with home-delivered, nutritious meals have won her regular accolades from Western New York’s most-respected community leaders, politicians and civic groups.

So it came as quite a shock yesterday when officers from the Tonawanda Police Department held a news conference on the lawn of the Sheridan Drive Tim Horton’s to announce that Mrs. Bennett has been charged with illegal potato trafficking in the first degree.

Tonawanda Police Chief Charles Charmin was visibly shaken as he spoke to the hushed media gathered outside of the donut shop.  “Since 2004 Mrs. Jean Bennett has abused her position by stealing over 50,000 potatoes from the very Meals On Wheels organization that employed her as its Executive Director,” said the Chief, taking a large bite from a peanut donut offered to him by one of his officers.

Charmin, with donut crumbs stuck in his mustache, said that investigators were tipped off to Bennett’s illegal activities last Thanksgiving after hundreds of meal recipients complained that their servings of mashed potatoes were actually cottage cheese and white cardboard doused in butter.

“Most Americans don’t realize that potatoes are much more valuable in their original form, before they are mashed or fried,” said the Chief.  “Mrs. Bennett apparently fell in with a bad crowd who knew that she worked with large quantities of potatoes.  Ultimately, she was influenced to make 50,000 terrible decisions that will haunt her for the rest of her life.”

Charmin said that Bennett, who apparently has a Criminal Justice degree from Buffalo State College, started pilfering the potatoes on a small scale at first, “cutting the portions with small amounts of cauliflower and bits of shredded paper.”

But eventually, the exorbitant street value of the potatoes lured Bennett into becoming a full-time dealer.

Bennett was arrested and charged with 50,000 counts of illegal and illicit potato trafficking and was transferred to the Buffalo Holding Center where she awaits trial.

Most of Bennett’s neighbors were shocked when they heard the news.  “Jean is such a wonderful person,” said a tearful Mildred Presley.  “For years she invited me to her home for the most delicious pancake breakfasts.”  Mrs. Presely’s voice trailed off as she suddenly realized her own gastronomic complicity in Bennett’s potato theft.

But at least one neighbor was not surprised.  “She had cars pulling up to her house at all hours of the night,” said a 56-year-old man who asked not to be identified.  “Young punks with no manners driving cars with thundering stereos.  Bennett would have her husband run sacks of stuff out to these people and they would disappear into the night.  I knew she was up to no good.”

Pictured: partners in crime

Chief Charmin lamented the fact that he didn’t uncover the crime two years ago.  His elderly mother, a long-time recipient of Meals on Wheels dinners, apparently called him in early 2007 to say that “she had never been so regular in her life.  Unfortunately, as I have just learned, my dear  mother was actually eating bleached Metamucil that was added to her potatoes  by Bennett in order to cover for the spuds that she was selling on the street.”

Charmin said that his growing suspicions of Bennett’s illicit activities were confirmed when The Potato Accounting Association of Western New York named Bennett it’s “Spud Dud of the Year” after a review of what the group claimed were “the shoddiest books we had seen in all of our years of potato accounting.”

“It didn’t take long after that to wrap up the entire investigation” said Charmin.

Investigators are working with Bennett to try to convince her to identify the whereabouts of any of the remaining 50,000 potatoes so that they may be returned to Meals On Wheels and, ultimately, prepared and delivered to the elderly and infirm who appreciate a good au gratin with their gruel.