Travel agent misplaced travelers’ trust, police say
Fayetteville woman accused of lying to clients and pocketing money meant for their vacations.
By Valerie Kalfrin
The (Syracuse) Post-Standard
Joan and Richard Kalin of Fayetteville envisioned strolling on a Hawaiian beach for their 3Oth wedding anniversary.
Missionary Connie Allen of Charleston, S.C., pictured herself in Rwanda, delivering clothing to refugees. Seven Lowville volunteer firefighters anticipated celebrating milestones with friends while sailing in the Caribbean.
Each trusted travel agent Patricia Sterritt Reilly of Fayetteville to arrange the trips of their dreams. Some of them had a tie to her — as a friend, a neighbor or a relative.
But their trust was misplaced, Manlius police say. The travelers have accused Reilly of pocketing money meant for their vacations and lying to them about the trips being canceled, according to police and court documents.
Since Dec. 29, police have charged Reilly, 52, with two counts of grand larceny, accusing her of stealing $6,324 intended for the Kalins’ holiday and $2,069 meant for Allen’s plane ticket.
Police also charged Reilly with felony scheme to defraud, citing all the accusers — more than 20 people — in the complaint as proof of her “systematic” duplicity.
“I think this definitely shows a pattern,” Investigator Greg Armstrong said. “This isn’t just a one-time ‘whoops, I forgot.’ There could be other people out there trying to get in touch with her.”
Reilly has worked as a travel agent for more than a decade. Since August 1991, she has owned The Travel Bug, first at 101 Old Cove Road, Liverpool, then at 7575 Buckley Road, North Syracuse, and now out of her home. Other Travel Bugs have existed in the Syracuse area but are not affiliated with Reilly or involved in any of these complaints.
Reilly, who is free without bail, has pleaded not guilty to all charges. She has declined to be interviewed for this story. Her lawyer, George M. Raus Jr. of Syracuse pointed out that although police say in court documents that Reilly defrauded more than 20 people, the complaints only contain statements against Reilly from the missionary’s husband, Paul Allen, and the Kalins. Armstrong explained that a scheme to defraud charge legally requires a complaint from just one victim, not all of them.
Plus, Raus said, Reilly has refunded the Kalins.
“My client has made restitution up front, prior to the conclusion of the criminal case, and in good faith. Technically, they’ve been made whole,” Raus said.
“I have to ascertain what the Allens are owed, if they are in fact owed what they claim,” Raus said. “I imagine I’ll discuss that with the district attorney’s office.”
The Kalins’ lawyer, C. Andrew Pappas of Syracuse, said that after her arrest, Reilly paid the roughly $6,900 — which covers the cost of the trip, court costs and interest — awarded to the Kalins in a December Syracuse City Court judgment.
Some of the Lowville accusers said they received refunds only after threatening Reilly with prosecution. Of the Lowville group, only Bob Hulbert said that he has not yet received a refund of the $500 he paid toward the cruise, but he noted that Reilly has told him she does not owe him any money.
Refunds in general do not make fraud charges disappear because the money was still taken, said Onondaga County Assistant District Attorney Paul Berry, who is investigating Reilly’s case.
“Whether you started with bad intent or found yourself in poor circumstances, there is no excuse to cheat the public,” said Winthrop Thurlow, assistant state attorney general of the Syracuse regional office, which received several complaints from Reilly’s accusers.
Manlius police began investigating Reilly in December at Pappas’ request.
The Kalins have lived four houses from Reilly for almost 25 years, swapping stories about their children, health and vacations, said Joan Kalin, 53, a registered nurse. She and Richard Kalin, 51, an accountant, booked flights through Reilly for roughly 15 years without a problem.
But according to the criminal complaint, Reilly is accused of stealing more than $6,000 from her neighbors after making an August 1999 reservation with Perillo Tours for their anniversary trip to Hawaii — a reservation Perillo later canceled for lack of payment.
Two weeks before the March 2000 trip was scheduled to leave, the complaint said, Reilly told the Kalins the trip was underbooked and had to be canceled. The couple didn’t question Reilly aggressively because they were dealing with family illnesses.
As months passed without a refund, Reilly alternately said the money was applied to another trip, tied up in a bank in Hawaii or with the Internal Revenue Service, Joan Kalin said in the complaint.
“I didn’t think she was lying to me,” Kalin said, but on Labor Day weekend, she phoned Perillo Tours and learned about the canceled reservation.
“My mouth must have dropped a mile. I was astounded, but I believed them because with all the excuses I was given, it made sense,” she said. “It’s a shame that we had to go to that extreme — she (Reilly) had to be booked, the district attorney had to get involved — before she would pay the money she stole from me.”
Syracuse and Onondaga County court records show that the Kalins aren’t the first people to have difficulties with Reilly. Reilly or her business has faced lawsuits, tax warrants or civil actions about a dozen times since 1996.
Court records show that most of these legal actions have been vacated or satisfied. Court papers say that Reilly still owes a former landlord about $8,500 for office space she leased in 1997; she also owes the IRS and state Department of Labor almost $6,000 in taxes related to her business.
In 1997, Solvay Bank sued Reilly and her North Syracuse agency, accusing her of defaulting on a $70,000 letter of credit, an instrument that allowed her to sell airline tickets.
The majority of travel agencies nationwide have such a guarantee of payment with the Airline Reporting Corporation of Arlington, Va., a clearinghouse between the agencies and the airlines that ensures the airlines are paid for their tickets, said Alan Muten, an ARC spokesman. The ARC severed its agreement with Reilly in 1997 after what Muten called “a long series of financial discrepancies” that are described in the lawsuit.
According to the complaint, Solvay Bank accused Reilly of not paying the airlines their due and becoming “unjustly enriched to the extent of $32,743.70.” Reilly has until March 1 to pay an undisclosed settlement with Solvay Bank, which was reached in December, said Solvay Bank’s lawyer, Harold P. Goldberg.
The severed ARC agreement meant Reilly’s agency could no longer sell airline tickets but that she could work as an independent travel agent. Agents are not licensed and can book cruises and vacation packages without regulation; an ARC-accredited agency must purchase airline tickets for them, Muten said.
“A travel professional operating outside our organization may be perfectly legitimate,” Muten said.
Manlius police believe that Reilly wasn’t. Armstrong, the Manlius police investigator, tracked down Paul Allen, 55, and his wife, Connie, 53, who claim they lost their money in 1998.
Connie Allen, who does missionary work through the South Carolina Episcopal Diocese, said she planned to deliver clothing to refugees in Rwanda that August and visit her daughter, who works at the U.S. Embassy there. In a criminal complaint, Paul Allen described how the couple contacted Reilly on the recommendation of other missionaries and sent her a check for a $2,069 round-trip plane ticket — a ticket she never sent, blaming the delay on political unrest.
“She said the State Department wouldn’t let people go,” Paul Allen explained. “But my daughter, who lives there, said people were coming in from all over the world.”
Paul Allen purchased another ticket for his wife through the College of Charleston, where he teaches, for about $1,800, then contacted a lawyer. After months without a refund, Allen won a May 2000 judgment against Reilly in Syracuse City Court for $3,015 — the cost of the ticket, his flight to Syracuse and legal fees.
“It’s not anger,” he said of his desire to see Reilly prosecuted. “She has to be called accountable. She can’t be doing this to people.”
Volunteer firefighter Frank Petrus, 52, of Lowville said he still can’t believe what happened to him and his friends — especially because two of them, Dick and Maren Ann Percoski, are related to Reilly by marriage.
“She fleeced us from day one,’’ said Petrus, a construction worker. “I have no respect for the woman. She lied to us repeatedly.”
Armstrong interviewed the families, whom he is including in the tally of more than 20 people Reilly is accused of defrauding. The Percoskis, whose son is married to Reilly’s daughter, booked a cruise with Reilly about five years ago for themselves and friends Fred and Fran Wilcox, another volunteer firefighter and his wife.
Fran Wilcox, 53, said the couples had such a good time that the Percoskis asked Reilly to arrange a cruise out of Puerto Rico for Dick’s 60th birthday. They invited the whole close-knit firehouse crew, many of whom had never been on a cruise before and considered the trip a first or second honeymoon.
In their written complaint to the state attorney general’s office, the group said they paid Reilly $21,167, but eight days before the November 1999 trip, Reilly told them the ship was unable to sail because of a fire on board. When one couple called another travel agency for more information, the complaint said, they learned that the fire story was false.
“We were never on the manifest for Royal Caribbean. They never even knew our names,” said Petrus, adding that no one blamed the Percoskis, who declined to be interviewed. “Maren Ann was just about devastated. She was ready to go to the bank and get money out of her savings account to pay us back.”
The group stopped payment on $14,717 of their money but still lost $6,450, according to the complaint. Aside from Reilly’s disagreement with Hulbert over his $500, the travel agent refunded the rest of the group’s money over last year, Wilcox said. The group sailed on another cruise together — but haven’t forgotten their ordeal.
“You have your suitcases packed to get out of this crummy weather and then you’re not going anywhere. And then to find out she never told us anything truthful. . . . I’m still angry,” Wilcox said. “Why did she do this? We think something happened along the way, and she kept robbing Peter to pay Paul, and it got out of hand.”
Joan Kalin said she, too, would like an explanation. “I really don’t know the person I knew as a neighbor,” she said. “It’s hard to understand.”
The one bright spot, Kalin noted, has been her Hawaii anniversary trip — nearly a year late, but still worthwhile. She and Richard returned Feb. 3. “My husband said, ‘Joan, we’re going to go. We’ll find the money, and we’ll go. I think you deserve a vacation,’” she said. “I booked it myself.”
(BOX) History of broken dreams
Manlius police accuse travel agent Patricia Sterritt Reilly of Fayetteville of defrauding more than 20 people by pocketing money meant to pay for their vacations.
August 1998: Paul and Connie Allen of South Carolina lose $2,069 for Connie’s round-trip plane ticket to Rwanda that they booked through Reilly, but that Reilly never sent, according to a criminal complaint. The couple later filed a lawsuit in Syracuse City Court, and the court awarded them $3,1O5 — the cost of the plane ticket and expenses. As of Wednesday, they hadn’t received a refund.
November 1999: A group of Lowville firefighters and their relatives and friends lose $6,450 on a Caribbean cruise booked through Reilly, who is related to one of the firefighters, according to a written complaint to the state attorney general’s office. Reilly tells the group the cruise was canceled because of a fire on the ship, but the group finds out there was no fire and they were never booked; the group stops payment on $14,717 of the $21,167 they paid for the trip, the complaint said. Reilly later refunds all but one group member, but Reilly disputes that she owes him money.
January 2000: Joan and Richard Kalin of Fayetteville lose $6,324 meant for their 30th wedding anniversary trip to Hawaii, which was booked through their neighbor, Reilly, according to a criminal complaint. Reilly told them the tour company canceled the trip because it was underbooked, the complaint said. Later, they filed suit and won a judgment of $6,925 — which covered the cost of the trip, court costs and interest-against Reilly. They received a refund last month.
December 2000: Manlius police charge Reilly with grand larceny, a felony, in the Kalins’ case.
January: Manlius police charge Reilly with grand larceny in the Allens’ case. They also charge her with scheme to defraud, another felony, citing all the accusers — more than 20 people — as proof of Reilly’s “systematic” duplicity, according to a criminal complaint.
Published: Feb. 15, 2001
(PHOTO) Michelle Gabel/Staff photographer
PATRICIA REILLY (left), a travel agent from Fayetteville, is arraigned by Fayetteville village court Judge Robert P. O’Leary Jan. 30 on charges in an alleged ticket scam.