A judge ruled that the Sayville School District did not have to pay over $200,000 to an outgoing administrator who made “clearly false and misleading” statements to other district administrators when requesting money to support his wife, supposedly sick with cancer, even though he signed on to a job at another district.

Former Sayville assistant superintendent Peter Branscombe was found to have made “misleading” statements to district administrators when requesting around $210,000 in benefits to leave his position to aid his supposedly fatally ill wife, according to State Supreme Court Judge Maureen Liccione.

While Branscombe had told his boss, Sayville superintendent Marc Ferris, and district labor counsel Hillary Moreira that he would be leaving his job at the start of the 2024-2025 school year to tend to his wife full-time, Branscombe had actually signed with Mount Sinai School District to become a deputy superintendent at the start of that school year, according to court documents.

Judge Liccione ruled that Sayville Schools was allowed to revoke a separation agreement they had signed with Branscombe, as they believed he was taking time off to care for his ill wife, despite having signed to work at Mount Sinai.

“Rescission is a viable remedy where one party pleads that it was fraudulently induced to enter into a contract, such as is the case here,” Liccione said.

The district was also not required to provide Branscombe a separation package because he had not worked in the district long enough to qualify for one.

Before leaving in summer 2024, Branscombe was the second-highest-paid employee in the Sayville School District, behind Ferris, making $241,821 in 2023.

Branscombe told Ferris and Moreira that his wife was recently diagnosed with cancer, a blood disorder, and chronic kidney disease and had undergone surgeries to treat the ailments on June 21, 2024.

According to court records and testimony from Ferris, Branscombe told him that the situation was “not looking good” and that Branscombe “did not have the head space to work,” and would “never forgive himself” if something bad happened to his wife while he wasn’t at home by her side.

In reality, according to the court documents, Branscombe’s wife did not have cancer, and Branscombe had been seeking employment with Mount Sinai School District since the start of 2024, months before he approached administrators asking for the $210,000 separation agreement. Branscombe signed to work with Mount Sinai on July 23.

Upon learning about Branscombe’s future employment with Mount Sinai on Aug. 27, 2024, in an executive session with Ferris and the board of education, the district voted unanimously to rescind the separation agreement it had signed with Branscombe.

“We are very pleased with the court’s ruling, which fully and unequivocally affirms our position in this matter,” Sayville Board of Trustees president Christine Sarni said. “Dr. Branscombe’s words were deceitful, false, and misleading, while his actions were deliberate, fraudulent, and represented a willful attempt to misuse taxpayer funds.”

In a court affirmation, Branscombe defended himself by saying he didn’t tell Ferris in their June 24, 2024, meeting that his wife had cancer, but stated that he was thinking of leaving the position to tend to his wife’s “worsening medical issues.”

Branscombe also said in an affirmation that he didn’t have a plan during this meeting, but Judge Liccione said that Branscombe had already planned at that point to join Mount Sinai School District, and days later entered a process to become an administrator there.

“With this chapter behind us, we can now turn our full attention to celebrating and supporting the achievements of our district’s exceptional educators and students,” Sarni said.