McCready arraignment postponed for one month

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A Southampton Elementary School gym teacher’s arraignment on drug charges in Southampton has been postponed a month, but Ryan McCready is still due in Riverhead Town Court on Wednesday to face similar charges there.

Meanwhile, Southampton School District officials say a paperwork mix-up was to blame for the district being unaware of the teacher’s arrest on similar charges six months earlier in Riverhead. State Education Department officials had apparently been unaware that Mr. McCready had been teaching in Southampton and had sent notification of the arrest to another district.

Mr. McCready, 24, who has been put on leave from his teaching job and from his post as the Southampton High School wrestling coach, was supposed to be in Southampton Town Justice Court on Monday. He is charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance in the seventh degree and driving while his ability was impaired by drugs, both misdemeanors.

He was arrested in Southampton on March 17 after New York State Police pulled him over on Sunrise Highway for failure to maintain his lane. Troopers said he was high and in possession of a hypodermic needle and a small amount of heroin.

On September 19, 2008, Mr. McCready had been pulled over on West Main Street in Riverhead and charged with the same offenses, driving while impaired by drugs and criminal possession of a controlled substance in the seventh degree.

Mr. McCready, of East Quogue, was arraigned in Riverhead on September 20 and released. It is unclear why his April 20 arraignment in Southampton was adjourned.

Mr. McCready’s attorney, George Duncan, did not return calls this week, and special prosecutor Steve O’Brien said he is unsure why the arraignment was postponed.

Mr. O’Brien said Suffolk County Court appointed him on April 13 to prosecute both cases. A special prosecutor was assigned to the case because Mr. McCready’s brother, Shaun, is a Suffolk County assistant district attorney.

Southampton School District Superintendent Dr. J. Richard Boyes put Mr. McCready on indefinite leave starting March 24, the day the district learned of both of Mr. McCready’s arrests through an unnamed source. Initially, Dr. Boyes said he was unsure why the New York State Education Department never informed the district of the arrests, as is procedure, but the superintendent later learned that it was likely a paperwork mix-up, he said.

State Education Department officials said they had never received a clearance request from the school district when Mr. McCready started working for Southampton nearly three years ago.

“Because SED did not have information that McCready was working at that particular school at the time of the arrest, SED could not have issued a subsequent arrest notice to them,” department spokeswoman Jane Briggs wrote in an e-mail last week.

“That’s not the case,” Dr. Boyes countered. “We’ve been in contact with the school attorney, and the school did submit a request for clearance.”

Dr. Boyes said Mr. McCready was fingerprinted for Education Department clearance when he applied to work for the Shoreham-Wading River School District a few years ago. When Mr. McCready later applied to work for the Southampton Elementary School, in 2006, rather than fingerprinting him again, Southampton School District sent a verification form to the Education Department, Dr. Boyes said.

“We’re not sure what happened once that form was sent to the State Education Department,” he said.

Dr. Boyes said the Education Department likely overlooked the verification because the department was in the midst of switching from a paper record-keeping system to electronic at that time. He added that Mr. McCready did have his teacher’s certification.

“He was cleared to work,” Dr. Boyes said. “There was no question about that.”

Dr. Boyes said Southampton has learned that when Mr. McCready was arrested in September, the arrest notification was sent to Shoreham-Wading River, which returned the notification to the Education Department, where it apparently stayed.