Former NYU finance director pleads responsible to $3 million fraud scheme

NEW YORK (AP) — A former finance director at New York College has pleaded responsible to a greater than $3 million fraud scheme that authorities say helped fund renovations to her house in Connecticut.

Cindy Tappe, 57, of Westport, Connecticut, used her place on the Manhattan faculty to divert cash supposed for minority and ladies owned companies, the workplaces of Manhattan District Legal professional Alvin Bragg and state Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli mentioned in a joint assertion Monday.

Tappe pleaded responsible Monday to grand larceny and has agreed to 5 years probation and $663,209 in restitution, in accordance with the workplaces.

“Her fraudulent actions not solely threatened to have an effect on the standard of schooling for college kids with disabilities and multilingual college students, however denied our metropolis’s minority and ladies owned enterprise enterprises an opportunity to pretty compete for funding,” Bragg mentioned in a press release.

Bragg and DiNapoli’s workplaces say Tappe improperly routed $3.3 million to 2 shell firms she created whereas serving as director of finance and administration for NYU’s Metropolitan Heart for Analysis on Fairness and Transformation of Colleges.

A few of the diverted funds have been used to cowl NYU-related bills, together with worker reimbursements, however greater than $660,000 was used to pay for Tappe’s private bills, together with renovations to her house in Connecticut and an $80,000 swimming pool, the workplaces mentioned.

The diverted funds have been associated to $23 million in state Schooling Division grants awarded to the Metropolitan Heart between 2011 and 2018, in accordance with Bragg and DiNapoli’s workplaces.

Tappe’s lawyer Deborah Colson mentioned her consumer has accepted accountability, “strongly regrets her misconduct” and plans to pay the required restitution in full previous to her sentencing on April 16.

“After that, she appears to be like ahead to placing this case behind her,” Colson mentioned in a press release.

NYU mentioned Tuesday that its inside audit workplace had investigated Tappe and turned over its findings to state officers, resulting in the prison costs.

“We’re deeply upset that Ms. Tappe abused the belief we positioned in her on this means; she stole from everybody — the taxpayer, the College, the folks the Metro Heart is meant to assist,” college spokesperson John Beckman wrote in an e mail. “NYU is happy to have been in a position to help in stopping this misdirection of taxpayer cash, and glad that the case has been dropped at an in depth.”