A former New York University (NYU) administrator on Monday pled guilty to stealing public money meant for minority- and women-owned businesses to add a swimming pool at her home.
Cindy Tappe, who formerly served as the director of finance and research at NYU, struck a plea deal with prosecutors that will allow her to avoid time behind bars if she pleads guilty to grand larceny. Instead, she will be forced to pay back $663,209 in restitution to cover the full sum of money she diverted for her personal expenses and spend five years on probation.
"Her fraudulent actions not only threatened to affect the quality of education for students with disabilities and multilingual students, but denied our city's minority and women owned business enterprises a chance to fairly compete for funding," Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr. said in a press release.
Tappe will be formally sentenced on April 16. Had she not taken a plea deal, she would have faced trial and received up to 25 years in a New York state prison if convicted.
How Much Did Tappe Steal From Public Money?
Prosecutors said Tappe was behind a six-year scheme that began in 2012 in which she redirected about $3.3 million from New York State education grants to shell companies she created. Through those companies, Tappe funneled over $600,000 on personal expenses, including $80,000 on a swimming pool for her Connecticut home.
In addition, prosecutors said Tappe spent other portions of the money on expenses related to the grants or to reimburse employees at NYU. She was also accused of drafting false invoices for three subcontractors who were paid despite not having done any work.
In total, Tappe's scheme involved $23 million in state grant money that was awarded to NYU for two programs. The first was meant to help school districts improve results among students learning English. The other aimed at addressing the unequal treatment of special education students, according to the New York Times. That meant Tappe defrauded the university out of nearly 15% of its taxpayer-funded grants.
Tappe's scheme was discovered by the university in 2018. She left her position overseeing NYU's Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and Transformation of Schools shortly after. The university reported the theft to the State Education Department, which notified the state comptroller's office.
