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On Monday evening, the Boston Globe broke the news that a finalist for Cambridge’s superintendent position lost more than $750,000 in a cryptocurrency scam.
That came as no surprise to the Cambridge School Committee.
The School Committee knew the details of Lourenço Garcia’s financial mismanagement earlier this summer, according to a district official familiar with the matter. But members declined to publicly take action on the information — or disclose it to Cambridge residents.
Garcia was recently named as one of three finalists for the position by CPS after a private selection process that has been heavily criticized by parents and educators due to a lack of transparency.
Garcia invested a total of $751,000 into a cryptocurrency platform in late 2021 and early 2022 before his money vanished. Months later, the candidate later sued his bank for allowing him to make the payment to the platform after losing his money, alleging the bank did not take sufficient steps to prevent fraud.
A Massachusetts court denied his lawsuit. Garcia unsuccessfully appealed the decision, and a ruling on the appeal, available online, lays out details from the case.
Garcia did not respond to requests for comment.
The cryptocurrency scam is not the only incident that is resurfacing for Garcia. The Globe also reported he was accused of domestic violence in 2013 following a divorce proceeding with his ex-wife.
2013 court documents allege that Garcia “was cruel & abusive to the plaintiff by striking her in the face & struggling w/her causing serious bodily injury,” the Globe reported. A later filing further alleged that Garcia often yelled at her and physically abused her on several occasions.
Garcia denied the allegations in court filings.
While School Committee members were made aware of both the scam and the domestic abuse allegations earlier this summer, the group has yet to take public action based on the allegations.
According to the same district official, the School Committee decided to refrain from public comment based on informal advice from a city attorney. The official said members were advised to refrain from commenting publicly on the private lives of candidates, since it could leave the body vulnerable to a lawsuit.
Garcia, the assistant superintendent of equity and inclusion for Revere Public Schools, has had to answer for the incident during the search process. School Committee member Elizabeth C.P. Hudson told the Globe that she spoke with Garcia about the incident, adding that she was concerned that he may not be a good fit for the superintendent position.
Garcia is not the only candidate who has been harshly scrutinized in the search process. Adam Taylor, a former superintendent of Rutland Public Schools in Vermont, was a semifinalist for the position. His candidacy caused major backlash in the city due to controversial remarks he made in 2019, comparing teachers’ practices of building relationships with their students to pimps or pedophiles.
Complaints about the search process boiled over in August, after the Cambridge Education Association — the union representing Cambridge Public Schools faculty and staff — called for the district to restart the search entirely.
Garcia is set to appear in front of the School Committee and Cambridge residents on Tuesday afternoon for final interviews for the superintendent position.
—Staff writer Shawn A. Boehmer can be reached at shawn.boehmer@thecrimson.com. Follow him on X @ShawnBoehmer
