Riverhead parks superintendent accused of fabricating accounting report

Riverhead removed Parks and Recreation Superintendent Ray Coyne after a hearing officer found that he lied about an accounting report he had presented as outside validation and used to support his $8,000 stipend. The Riverhead Town Board voted 4-0 to terminate Coyne at a special meeting on Tuesday, June 23, 2026, ending a disciplinary case that centered on a document tied to the recreation department’s revenues and the town’s A06 Recreation Program Fund.

Hearing officer Robert Draffin found Coyne guilty of three of four disciplinary specifications and recommended that the town uphold his suspension and terminate his employment. The case turned on a report Coyne had described as an independent forensic accounting review, but records showed it was not prepared by an outside firm. Instead, Coyne used artificial intelligence tools to create the document while falsely presenting it as a review by Anthony J. Mancini, CPA, CFF, of Mancini Forensic Accounting & Advisory Group, PLLC.

Coyne had worked for the Town of Riverhead since October 2005, giving the dispute added weight inside town government. The issue was not just whether a department head crossed a line in a personnel fight, but whether a long-serving official tried to use a bogus document to strengthen his case for extra pay and to frame his position as independently vetted.

The disciplinary case also put Riverhead’s internal controls and financial oversight under a sharper spotlight. The recreation department’s revenues and the A06 Recreation Program Fund were at the center of the dispute, and Riverhead’s 2026 tentative budget listed the Recreation Program Fund among the town’s funds. That connection makes the fabrication more than a paperwork issue: it involved a document meant to influence how town money and compensation were understood.

Newsday reported that the firing came after a four-month disciplinary proceeding, and the special meeting on Coyne’s termination lasted about 10 minutes. For Riverhead residents, the case now stands as a test of how tightly the town checks claims made by department heads, especially when those claims affect pay, public money and trust in the offices that oversee both.