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For Immediate Release:  
For Further Information:
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October 24, 2008  

Peter Aseltine
609-292-4791

Office of The Attorney General
- Anne Milgram, Attorney General
Division of Criminal Justice
- Deborah Gramiccioni, Director

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Newark Daycare Operator Sentenced to Jail for Theft of State Funds

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TRENTON – Attorney General Anne Milgram announced that the former manager of the New Africa Day Care Center in Newark was sentenced to jail today for diverting thousands of dollars in state funding from the day care center for his personal use.

Robert Parrish, 44, of Neptune, was sentenced to five years probation, conditioned on him serving 200 days in the Mercer County Jail, by Superior Court Judge Thomas P. Kelly in Mercer County. Parrish also must pay restitution in an amount to be determined following a hearing.

On July 29, a Mercer County jury found Parrish guilty as an accomplice of third-degree charges of theft by failure to make a required disposition of property, misconduct by a corporate official, and failure to file a state income tax return for 2002. The verdict followed a five-day trial prosecuted by Deputy Attorney General Susan Kase for the Division of Criminal Justice.

Parrish was indicted in June 2006 along with New Africa Day Care Center Inc., which operated at 372 South Orange Ave.; its executive director, Muslimah Suluki, 60, who is Parrish’s mother; and her ex-husband, Mahdi Suluki, a consultant and board member of New Africa.

Mahdi Suluki, 66, of East Orange, pleaded guilty on July 21 to third-degree theft by deception. He admitted that he solicited a donation of $4,785 from a Newark business for New Africa after the day care center went out of business and deposited it into a bank account he controlled. Under the plea agreement, the state will recommend that he receive a sentence of four years in prison. His sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 17.

The charges remain pending against Muslimah Suluki, a fugitive whose last known residence was in College Park, Ga. The indictment charged that between January 2001 and March 2004, when New Africa closed, the defendants took more than $200,000 in state funds that were dedicated for day care and preschool programs and used them for personal expenditures, including, among other things, purchases of two Jaguars for Muslimah and Mahdi Suluki, and vacations in Chicago and Hyannis Port, Mass. Parrish – allegedly in concert with Muslimah Suluki – diverted funding from the non-profit New Africa Day Care Center to a for-profit day care center they ran in Neptune called Aziz Learning Center, from which they withdrew profits.

The investigation was conducted by State Investigator Wayne Cummings and Detective Lee Bailey for the Division of Criminal Justice Corruption Bureau and Tax Investigator Bruce Stuck of the New Jersey Division of Taxation Office of Criminal Investigation.

The investigation started when the Department of Education discovered questionable expenditures and reported them to the Attorney General’s Office. Attorney General Milgram thanked the Department of Education for providing administrative resources and investigative assistance to the Division of Criminal Justice throughout the investigation.

In addition to federal funds, New Africa received Abbott pre-school funding from the New Jersey Department of Education and day care funding from the state Department of Human Services. New Africa, which typically had an enrollment of about 45 children, received more than $1.8 million in public funding during the years it operated.

The charges pending against Muslimah Suluki are merely accusations and she is presumed innocent until proven guilty.

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