Marking another step in the process of untangling an event that has brought so much tumult to Seton Hall University and its law school, three former employees of the law school pleaded guilty last week to their part in a scheme to defraud the university of $1.3 million.
The trio admitted to a number of illegal activities, including asking vendors to pay them directly and forming a shell company to bill the university for services never rendered, U.S. District Attorney Phil Sellinger announced Friday.
“Through an elaborate, years-long embezzlement scheme, these defendants violated their obligation to the students and exploited their role at this institution of higher learning to line their own pockets,” Sellinger said in a statement. “Through forgery, fraudulent invoices, unauthorized transactions and phony shell companies, they stole money intended to benefit the school and its student body and abused their positions.”
The news was first reported by New Jersey Advance Media.
The theft has directly or indirectly led to the law school dean (Kathleen Boozang) stepping down from that position, the chair of the board of trustees (Kevin Marino) leaving his position and the school president (Joseph Nyre) announcing he would go on sabbatical and not return to the school.
Monsignor Joseph R. Reilly became the school’s 22nd president on July 1.
The guilty pleas by the former employees give the school some sense of closure.
“We are grateful to the government agencies involved in the investigation for their diligence,” a spokesperson for the school said in a statement. “We also appreciate the patience and cooperation of everyone at Seton Hall who has worked to implement these enhanced fiscal policies, never wavering in our shared focus of advancing Seton Hall’s exceptional educational mission.”
The fallout from the incident, however, appears to be far from over.
In February, Nyre filed a suit against the school, accusing the school of retaliation after he raised objections about school conduct regarding the incident and other areas. The suit also alleged his wife, Kelli Nyre, was sexually harassed by a school official.
And, while an independent third-party investigation by Perry Law of New York released in July found no evidence to support the allegations of harassment, lawyers involved in the case indicated further action could be coming.
Meanwhile, the guilty pleas last week shed more light on how the situation unfolded.
Teresina DeAlmeida, a former assistant dean responsible for some financial functions at the law school; her assistant, Rose Martins; and DeAlmeida’s sister, Silvia Cardoso (another employee), pleaded guilty to wire fraud conspiracy in Newark federal court last week.
According to the report from NJAM, prosecutors allege that, between 2009 and July 2022, the three women worked together to misappropriate more than $1.3 million in a number of ways, including:
- DeAlmeida instructed a vendor to pay Martins and Cardoso as employees, even though they did not perform any work. DeAlmeida then had the vendor submit false invoices to the school to reimburse the vendor for sums paid to Martins and Cardoso, prosecutors alleged.
- DeAlmeida used the school-issued credit card to purchase hundreds of thousands of dollars in prepaid debit cards and other gift cards from the school store, purchases that prosecutors said DeAlmeida fraudulently approved while Martins and Cardoso forged signatures of other employees for internal approvals.
- In 2015, Martins opened a shell company called CMS Content Management Specialist LLC, and fraudulently billed the school for $208,000 of services never provided, officials said. DeAlmeida approved the expenses, according to authorities.
Seton Hall spokesperson Michael Hyland, in a statement, detailed the school’s action after it uncovered the illegal activity — and actions it has taken since.
“This matter relates to financial irregularities first uncovered by Seton Hall during a regular internal review,” he said. “We immediately conducted a more intensive review utilizing a third-party auditor and notified the appropriate higher education and government entities. This process led to our implementation of additional financial safeguards and controls to reduce the likelihood of similar incidents.”