Debate and deceit: Western High teacher had history of troubling behavior before his arrest

Dario Camara learned the art of persuasion, a skill that helped him become one of Florida’s most decorated debate coaches, despite a past that nearly disqualified him from the classroom.

He persuaded a New Jersey court to reduce a felony theft charge to a lesser crime. He successfully appealed a decision to deny him a Florida teaching license after he failed to disclose his out-of-state crime.

And he convinced Western High in Davie to hire him despite a number of flags on his background checks.

Camara, 41, avoided criminal prosecution after a longtime friend filed a report to law enforcement that accused him of fraud. He was able for more than a year to stave off a caterer that was owed $16,000 for events held at Western.

It’s easy to see how that might happen.

“If you’re good at debate, you can persuade anyone to do anything,” said Nancy Dean, who was the head debate coach at Western High until she retired in 2021. “You know both sides, the pro and con of everything, and you can piece together an argument. And if you’re a good speaker, that’s everything.”

But now Camara is facing more legal challenges. Davie police arrested him Feb. 23 on suspicion of fraud and grand theft. The State Attorney’s Office is reviewing whether to file formal charges. He has been removed from the school and placed in a job with no student contact pending the outcome of his case.

And the Broward Sheriff’s Office says it has opened a new investigation after receiving a complaint that money from a debate booster club may have been used to pay an account with the same name as Camara’s former roommate. That individual, Thomas Morog, told the Broward Sheriff’s Office that account was opened without his knowledge.

Records obtained by the South Florida Sun Sentinel, along with interviews of those who know Camara, paint a portrait of a talented debate teacher who has through the years faced allegations of theft and shirking bills.

Questions about Camara’s use of money date back nearly 20 years, and lax oversight of a Western High booster club may have contributed to some of the more recent concerns, a Sun Sentinel investigation has discovered. Among the findings:

• Camara failed to reveal his criminal conviction and license revocation in New Jersey when he applied for jobs in Palm Beach and Broward counties. He also failed to disclose his past when he applied for a state teaching license, leading to a reprimand from the state, records show.
• Camara ran a debate program at a Palm Beach County high school that went over budget by more than $10,000 one year and more than $22,000 another, according to school audits.
• At Western High, Camara had access to a debate booster club credit card and PayPal account, despite a district regulation that says district employees “are not allowed to collect or handle money for booster club sponsored activities nor serve as a signing official.”
• An email sent by Camara shows debate students were required to pay $125 in booster club dues to take his class and attend after-school meetings, despite a district policy prohibiting such requirements.
• A former debate club president reported to the Broward School Board that he and his father authorized, at Camara’s request, for their credit cards to be charged a combined $3,700 for what was supposed to be a temporary hold for hotel rooms for a January 2024 tournament. They were told the charges would be refunded, but they never were, the former student reported.
• Organizers of a number of debate tournaments have emailed school officials in recent weeks complaining about unpaid bills totaling about $16,000 and threatening students’ abilities to compete in future debate tournaments.

“The allegations are disturbing on so many levels,” Broward School Board member Sarah Leonardi said. “What is most alarming to me is the way he may have used his influence and power as the debate coach to allegedly take advantage of students and volunteers.”

Camara spoke briefly to the Sun Sentinel by phone shortly after his Feb. 23 arrest.

“I didn’t receive any support from our booster club or the school principal in all of that,” he said. “I can’t say anything else.”

Camara agreed in a text on April 4 to do an in-person interview to address a list of questions from the Sun Sentinel but he later backed out.

“Regretfully, my lawyer is no longer free today,” he texted the next day. “I’m sorry for the delay but he wants to be present.”

He then agreed to reschedule but didn’t respond when contacted twice more by text. His lawyer, Mark Wilensky, declined to comment when reached by the Sun Sentinel.

Showing talent in high school

Camara’s troubles with the law date back nearly two decades, but his passion for debate goes back even further. At East Side High in Newark, New Jersey, he competed in debate before graduating in 2000.

His senior yearbook, “Foreshadowing,” described him as a studious teen with a competitive streak.

“Talking about someone who likes to be ranked, Dario Camara is ranked number seven academically at East Side as well as a top debater in the state of New Jersey,” the yearbook states. “He has truly proven how wise he is and his forceful character will help him succeed in all his endeavors.”

The yearbook also named him as the student “most likely to skip a date to read a book.”

He started at the College of New Jersey in fall 2000 and studied communications, with a focus on TV and film production, his transcript shows. His sophomore year, he began working with the speech and debate program at Ridge High in Basking Ridge, New Jersey, David Yastremski, a teacher at the school, wrote in a 2006 recommendation letter.

“While Dario did not have teaching set in his sights, I immediately noticed that he possessed a wonderful rapport with our students,” Yastremski wrote. “For a young man who was only two years older than our seniors, he immediately established himself as a professional — offering clear guidance and discipline. Our students immediately recognized him as a devoted coach, while at the same time, respected him as an authority figure.”

Camara developed a new calling as a teacher, Yastremski wrote. When Camara graduated in 2004, a video production teaching job was open at Ridge, and he completed a program that allows people without teaching degrees to enter the profession, the letter said.

Facing trouble

The next year, he faced one of his first troubles with law enforcement.

In April 2005 he wrote a check for $6,003.84 to a catering company, where he’d once worked, for his mother’s birthday party.  A few days later, the check was returned for insufficient funds, according to a Kenilworth, New Jersey, police report.

Despite assurances to the caterer and a police detective, he did not make good on the check. On Oct. 11, 2005, Camara was arrested on charges of theft by deception and writing a bad check, the latter of which was later dropped.

“We negotiated a price and based on our projected turnout, believed the final bill would be approximately $2,500 to $3,000,” Camara wrote in a New Jersey court filing two years later. “At the time, I had approximately $3,000 in my checking account. Since my sister and brother were each chipping in one-third, I wasn’t really concerned about the bill. The turnout at the event was greater than anticipated, and the final bill winded up being twice our budgeted amount.”

Camara accepted a pretrial intervention to avoid prosecution if he paid full restitution and completed community service hours, a Florida Department of Education investigation shows.

In the middle of his probationary period, Camara landed a job teaching TV production and speech and debate at his alma mater, East Side High in Newark. His colleagues at Ridge High offered enthusiastic endorsements.

“I consider him to be a highly reputable individual whose fine character and dedication to teaching have made him a highly valued member of the Ridge High School staff. Dario is a person of the fine quality,” assistant principal George Villar wrote in a job recommendation letter in June 2006.

But Camara’s legal troubles weren’t over. After failing to complete his community service and pay restitution, a New Jersey court rejected his pretrial intervention, and he pleaded guilty to the felony charge of theft by deception on Jan. 22, 2007.

In an about-face shortly after the guilty plea, he sought to rescind it, minding his future as an educator. That came after the New Jersey Department of Education informed him that, based on his conviction, “I would be permanently disqualified from employment in any school under the supervision of the Department of Education,” he wrote in a court motion. “I was shocked by the news as I was not only going to lose my career, but something that brought me a great deal of joy and happiness,” he wrote.

The court reduced Camara’s conviction to a theft by deception misdemeanor on July 20, 2007, and he was ordered to perform 60 hours of community service and pay about $6,000 in restitution.

But Camara didn’t try to save his New Jersey teaching license, records show. In May 2007, the New Jersey State Board of Examiners voted to issue him an “order to show cause” on why his license shouldn’t be revoked.

When Camara didn’t respond, the board ruled that was the equivalent to admitting he’s ineligible to hold a license. It revoked his license in February 2008.

Starting anew in Florida

By that point, Camara had found a new job in Florida, teaching debate at Royal Palm Beach High School in Palm Beach County.

He was asked on a May 2007 security clearance form whether he had been convicted of any crime and whether he faced any pending disciplinary action on his teaching license, but he answered no to both questions, his Palm Beach County personnel file shows.

Camara was hired the next month, and began work in August 2007 with a temporary teaching certificate. When he applied the next month for a permanent state certificate, he failed to report his past criminal case and pending action on his teaching license, as required, a Florida Department of Education investigation said.

The department discovered his issues in New Jersey during a background check.

“The certificates could have been saved according to my lawyer if I had acted on the matter,” Camara said in a fax to a Department of Education investigator in April 2008. “The problem is because I moved down to Florida I never push the paperwork or went to the … hearings. My lawyer said I can still probably save the certificates if I wanted.”

The state initially denied Camara’s application in June 2008, but he successfully appealed and was granted a teaching license, while also receiving a reprimand and $500 fine for failing to disclose his past issues.

Camara found success during his three years as a debate teacher and coach at Royal Palm Beach High. In 2009, he was one of 10 winners in a school district “My Teacher. My Hero” awards ceremony, according to the Palm Beach Post.

“Whether I’m nervous about a test for another class or nervous about a debate tournament, he is always there to reassure me that I will do fine,” wrote the student who nominated him.

In February 2010, Camara was voted Regional Coach of the Year for Palm Beach and Martin counties by the Florida Forensic League, a state speech and debate group.

Questions about money

But during all three of his years at Royal Palm Beach High, the speech debate program had deficits that had to be covered by money elsewhere at the school, according to internal fund audits. A district audit for the 2007-08 year showed a $10,634.03 deficit for speech and debate at Royal Palm Beach. This was caused by two out-of-state tournaments, the audit said.

“No collection was received from the participants for these two trips,” the auditor wrote.

The audit doesn’t identify anyone in the program by name.

A 2008 archived website of the Royal Palm Beach speech and debate program lists Camara as the director of the program and the only teacher affiliated with it at the time.

The debate program had a $778.95 deficit the next year, but then ballooned to a $22,565 deficit in 2009-10, Camara’s final year at Royal Palm Beach High.

Camara was non-renewed from Palm Beach County for the 2010-11 school year, but not due to issues with speech and debate, according to his personnel file. His state license had been in jeopardy because he failed to pay a $500 fine after he was disciplined by the state.

That issue was resolved in April 2010, after Camara paid the fine, but Camara didn’t turn in to the district the required paperwork that he “completed the necessary requirements for a valid Florida Educator’s Certificate,” Darron Davis, who was the human resources chief, wrote to Camara on July 18, 2010.

Camara found a new job that year, teaching speech and debate at Christopher Columbus High, a private Catholic high school in Miami, where he stayed for 5½ years. By this point, he had become a respected speech and debate coach on a national level, taking leadership roles with groups such as the National Speech & Debate Association and the National Catholic Forensic League. He also served as a judge for national tournaments around the country.

He was a co-recipient of Florida Forensic League’s Coach of the Year award in 2013. One former student described him as “the most winningest coach in Columbus history” in a 2017 Facebook comment.

The high school honored him in April 2015 with the Columbus Compass Award for “ingenuity, resourcefulness and dedication” in leading students to excellence. “When you are appreciated by your colleagues, students and friends, it is so easy to keep going strong,” he wrote on Facebook at the time. “Have never felt such love.”

He left Columbus in the middle of the 2015-16 school year. He applied to Broward Schools on Jan. 4, 2016, and Columbus Principal David Pugh was asked on a school district human resources form if he knew why Camara left. “Can’t answer,” he replied. Reached recently by the Sun Sentinel, Pugh declined to comment.

Job opening at Western High

Nancy Dean, a teacher who had started the speech and debate program at Western High in the early 2000s, knew Camara and wanted him for a debate teacher opening, she told the Sun Sentinel in a recent interview.

“He was a good coach, and he had computer skills” necessary for a debate program heavy on data and research, she said. “We needed him.”

Camara’s application for a Western High debate teacher position included glowing recommendations from Steven Schappaugh, who was director of programs and education for the National Speech & Debate Association, and Jenny Cook, who was the CEO of the Davie-based Summit Debate, which hosts debate camps in San Jose, Calif., Des Moines and Boston each summer.

Cook had appointed Camara as the operations director for her organization. Cook would file a report four years later in what the Broward Sheriff’s Office listed as a fraud complaint, but in 2016, she was a huge supporter.

“Over the past years, I have watched Dario give his heart and soul to not only the students at the Summit Debate Camp, but also the students in the state of Florida,” she wrote in her letter. “Overall, I would recommend Dario and have been in awe with his compassion, leadership and dedication to kids. That is a rare combination!”

On Jan. 4, 2016, Camara filled out a school district screening form, claiming he had no criminal background and never had disciplinary action taken against his teaching license, his district personnel file shows. Two days later, a school district application tracking program flagged his application for review, saying he failed to disclose his criminal history to the state in 2007 and failed to disclose his prior state certification issues with the school district.

Western Principal Jimmy Arrojo decided to still hire him on Jan. 15, 2016, a move supported by Alan Strauss, who was Arrojo’s supervisor, and Sue Rockelman, the district’s director of instructional employment, the personnel file shows.

“Mr. Camara has been cleared to work by [the Broward School district] and has been in good standing as a teacher for over seven years,” Arrojo wrote on the personnel form. “In addition, Mr. Camara has specific expertise as a Debate teacher/coach, a high need area for Western High School.”

Camara started on Jan. 25, 2016, joining Dean, who told the Sun Sentinel recently she had no knowledge of his issues in New Jersey. Dean had built the program into a national powerhouse, and that continued with Camara helping to lead the team.

“WHS debate dominates again! #1 in World Debate, 2 Congress Finalists, School of Excellence & Top 20 Team in the world,” Arrojo tweeted on June 20, 2016.

The National Speech & Debate Association chose Camara as one of five finalists for Educator of the Year in 2017. The Florida Forensic League named Camara Coach of the Year in 2018, the second time he’d received that honor.

After Dean retired in 2021, Camara became the head coach and leader of the school’s debate program.

Parents’ complaints

But as Camara found professional success, he was facing questions about how he dealt with money.

In 2020, while director of operations for Summit Debate, Camara processed payments from parents who had planned to attend camp that year, Summit CEO Jenny Cook told the Broward Sheriff’s Office. Those camps, according to the Summit website, are held each year in San Jose, Boston and Des Moines.

The camp was canceled that year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, so parents requested refunds. But they complained on Facebook, Reddit and Twitter that Camara was failing to return their money.

At least one parent called Western High in 2020 to complain. The school district’s Special Investigative Unit, or police department, referred the complaint to the Broward Sheriff’s Office, school district spokeswoman Cathleen Brennan told the Sun Sentinel recently. She confirmed the school district did not conduct its own investigation or discipline Camara related to the matter. “The BSO investigation was not related to Camara’s scope of employment at BCPS or Western High School,” Brennan said.

Cook alleged to a Broward sheriff’s detective that Camara had redirected payments from parents into his personal account, according to a Sheriff’s Office investigation report from July 30, 2020.

She said she found the first discrepancy on June 1, 2020, for $2,200 and believed more than $10,000 was missing. One parent shared with the Sun Sentinel an email from Cook where she said more than 20 families were affected.

In October 2020, Cook told the Sheriff’s Office she had refunded customers “related to any of the transactions made by Camara, and that she and her company are incurring the loss. Cook advised she did not have the total loss amount at this time and was still examining her records.”

After Cook didn’t respond to several months of sheriff’s requests to submit evidence, she called the detective and said “she was taking time to think about what she wanted to do regarding Camara,” the Broward sheriff’s report said. “She explained Camara is a longtime friend of hers, and she was having a difficult time deciding how she wanted to proceed in the investigation.”

The case was classified as “pending/inactive” in October 2021 after Cook didn’t follow-up, the report said.

The Sun Sentinel couldn’t reach Cook for comment despite attempts by phone.

Camara resigned as Broward County’s district chairman for the National Speech & Debate Association around that same time after members of the group raised concerns about his hesitancy to turn over financial statements, according to emails in Camara’s school district account obtained by the Sun Sentinel through a public records request.

Camara also had access to a credit credit and PayPal account for the Wildcats Debate Parents Booster Club, according to emails and interviews.

The district’s booster club regulations say booster clubs can be comprised of parents, school personnel, businesses and community members, but an employee cannot be a “signing official or handle money.”

In addition to Camara, student officers for the debate team had login credentials to the PayPal account, said Marc Zavarro, who was debate club president during his senior year in 2021-22.

Zavarro told the Sun Sentinel he continued to have access to the account after he graduated. Now a sophomore at Emory University, he remained a volunteer coach for the team until recently.

Students were required to pay booster club fees to participate in speech and debate, according to an email from Camara, which is contrary to district regulations.

“This year, the dues are $125 and cover your student’s entrance into the National Speech and Debate Association, debate team shirts, purchase of materials, additional coaching, and other costs,” reads an October 2023 email Camara asked the booster club to send out. “Every member of the team is required to pay these dues in order to be in the class as well as attend the meetings after school.”

But according to district booster club guidelines, “The imposing of charges/fees to students/parents by school-allied organizations for equipment, team uniforms, musical instruments or other items or supplies that are required to be used by the student in order to participate in a school activity … is expressly prohibited.”

Facing bills

Over the next few years, Camara faced financial issues, records show. In March 2022, a judge ordered him to pay $10,081.87 he owed on a Citbank card as well as $369.50 in court costs. He paid that off by mid-August 2023 after the school district was required to garnish wages, court records show. A judge ordered him in June 2022 to pay $3,657 he owed on a Capital One credit card and that has yet to be paid, court records show.

By May 2023, Camara was receiving notices of unpaid bills by a caterer, Exquisite by Robert. The company is owned by Robert Egert, whose daughter attends Western.

Exquisite had catered a tournament at Western High the previous October. Although the invoice said the bill should go to the Florida Forensic League, where Camara was vice president for operations, a debate calendar shows the event was actually for another group, the South Florida Catholic Forensic League, where he served as director.

The Florida Forensic League did host a Novice and Middle School State tournament at Western High on April 22 and 23. Exquisite agreed to a cater that event as well, even though a $5,695.97 invoice for the October event had yet to be paid. The invoices for the April events totaled $10,500.

On May 24, a staff member for the caterer emailed Camara about why the October invoice hadn’t been paid.

“I am tracking this payment as we think we mailed it or handed it to someone back in the fall. Yikes,” Camara emailed a company official the next day, according to emails included in a lawsuit the company filed.

Over the next few months, Camara delayed paying the vendor, changing stories about whether the Florida Forensic League or the school booster’s club was responsible for payment of the bills, emails show.

On Nov. 3, 2023, Exquisite sued Camara and the Florida Forensic League, alleging a breach of contract. Shortly after, the league board removed Camara as vice president. Camara blamed the lawsuit on the booster club.

“The Florida Forensic League paid the booster club for meals and in turn the booster was supposed to pay the catering company,” Camara wrote in an email to Florida Forensic League members on Dec. 15. “However, our booster did not make the payment and has not and therefore the catering company filed a civil suit. … The Florida Forensic League did their part, but our Western booster failed.”

Camara gave a different story to a booster club member. In a Dec. 21 email Camara told her, “I do not know anything about the lawsuit at all.” When she asked Camara on Jan. 10, 2024, whether the Florida Forensic League had paid for the April 2023 event, Camara replied, “They owe us the hosting fees for hosting” and said he would address it with members at an upcoming tournament.

After his arrest, Camara told police that he never submitted the catering invoice to anyone for approval, according to the Davie police report. “Camara was asked if the booster club ever stated that they would be financially responsible for the catering, and he said no. Camara was asked if the booster club had the funds to even pay for the catering and he stated no.”

At the time of the catering order, the booster club was $18,000 in debt, the arrest report said.

A few months before the arrest, Arrojo ordered the booster club to be shut down and for Camara to turn over financial information. Booster clubs are supposed to hold meetings where they turn in financial statements at least twice a year to the principal, under district regulations. But Arrojo didn’t appear to have them, asking Camara for a “full financial report” for the booster club’s current and previous school year, both in October and December.

“Principal Arrojo has since instituted retraining for all administrators, coaches and club sponsors regarding Booster Clubs, internal accounts and fundraising to ensure compliance with all District procedures and requirements,” Brennan, the district spokeswoman, told the Sun Sentinel.

Arrojo also voiced concern on Jan. 18 that Camara had submitted paperwork for a tournament at Emory University in Atlanta “one day before the Winter break and with no financial information.” Camara provided him some financial information that day, which was only about a week before the Jan. 26-Jan. 28 tournament. Arrojo said in the email he’d send it to the district to request approval.

Zavarro wrote an email to the Broward School Board March 30 saying there were serious financial issues surrounding the Emory trip. He shared with the Sun Sentinel a Jan. 23 group text message between Camara and student officers on the debate team, one of whom is Zavarro’s sister.

By this point, students had already paid the booster club’s PayPal account to cover their tournament costs, including lodging, Zavarro told the Sun Sentinel.

Camara requested someone’s parent use their credit card to put a $4,000 hold on hotel rooms because the debate booster club’s credit card had been closed down, the text message shows.

“I would use my card but it can’t be a school board employee. Not sure what I’ll do if we don’t have this option and they just called me about it,” Camara texted the students.

When they were slow to agree, Camara texted, “well we can’t sleep on the street.”

Zavarro said in his email to School Board members that he and his father agreed to use their credit cards, thinking it would just be a hold. But they got charged a combined $3,700 by Home2Suites in Atlanta, credit card statements he shared with the Sun Sentinel show.

“They informed me they never received a check from Western High School and that the money was taken from our account because they never received funds in return,” Zavarro said in the email to the School Board.

Zavarro’s email to the board also said he’s being copied on letters from vendors for thousands in unpaid bills, including March invoices for $1,495 for the Sunvite tournament at Nova Southeastern University’s University School and $1,130 for Nova High School’s Nova Titan Invitational.

The teacher listed as the Sunvite contact couldn’t be reached, but Jose Denis, director of the speech and debate program at Nova High School, said recently he still hadn’t been paid for his tournament, which was held in October.

Denis said usually debate teams pay before the tournament or the day of, but he allowed Camara’s students to compete that day without paying.

“We were all under the assumption he would be acting in good faith,” Denis said.

He said unpaid bills can affect students’ ability to compete in future tournaments.

A district spokeswoman said that so far, “the school’s debate team has continued to follow its regular competition schedule.”

Notifying authorities

Zavarro sent the School Board a spreadsheet showing Western owes about $16,000 for unpaid balances at 24 different tournaments, a dollar figure confirmed by Brennan, the district spokeswoman. Brennan declined to say how the school planned to pay these bills.

“The matter is being investigated by Davie PD. We look forward to learning what investigators conclude regarding the case,” she said.

In his email to the School Board, Zavarro included a 58-page log of the booster club’s PayPal transactions.

He told the Sun Sentinel he has had access to the PayPal account records for several years but started reviewing the transactions more closely after Camara’s arrest. He told the School Board he has shared the logs and all the other information he has with law enforcement.

The PayPal log shows dozens of payments totaling more than $28,000 made to an account named Thomas Morog. The payments range from less than $100 to $6,100 per transaction.

Morog, a physical therapist who has since relocated to Buffalo, New York, told the Sun Sentinel he learned about these transactions from Zavarro. He said he never opened a PayPal account and never received the money, and he has no connection to Western debate. He said he rented a room in Camara’s Oakland Park home from 2021 to 2023.

After learning about these transactions, Morog said he checked his Experian credit report and discovered that a Synchrony Bank/PayPal credit card also was opened with his name.

“The credit card was opened Aug. 18, 2023,” he told the Sun Sentinel. “I wasn’t even living down there. I didn’t know any of this stuff.”

His credit report shows that the card is maxed out beyond its $5,400 balance, but that monthly payments of $183 have been made consistently. The phone numbers listed on the card are his own and Camara’s, he said.

He reported the matter to the Broward Sheriff’s Office, which confirmed to the Sun Sentinel it’s investigating.

A review by the district is also needed, Board member Sarah Leonardi said. “It’s my hope that the district investigates how policies went ignored and institutes new practices and controls to prevent this from happening again,” she said.