Thursday, May 3, 2012
NASA Special Agent believes WJU committed five federal crimes
Click here to see the affidavit of the NASA Special Agent who established probable cause for the 2/16/12 massive federal raid on Wheeling Jesuit University.
The NASA agent believes that Wheeling Jesuit University committed five federal crimes: Theft (18 U.S.C. 666); Major Fraud (18 U.S.C. 1031); Conspiracy (18 U.S.C. 371); False Claims (18 U.S.C. 287); and Wire Fraud (18 U.S.C. 1343), [¶ 6, p. 2].
The affidavit also implicates the WJU Board of Directors in criminal activity. To wit: "Documents obtained thus far also evidence knowledge and intent by the Wheeling Jesuit University Board of Directors to circumvent the [law] and improperly divert Federal Government funds for the purposes of sustaining Wheeling Jesuit University in its general, non-federal program educational areas." -- ¶ 16, p. 9.
The 25-page affidavit is followed by nine pages listing locations and items to be seized. The identities of the two suspected perpetrators: Redacted Subject #1 is J. Davitt McAteer, Vice President of Wheeling Jesuit University; and Redacted Subject #2 is Wheeling Jesuit University.
If you have any questions, please ask them in the commentary section.
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See www.wtrf.com and www.theintelligencer.net: McAteer gone as of June 30.....
ReplyDeleteToday's Intelligencer also releases a PDF of the affidavit you saw at this post 5 days ago. SaveWJU is your best news source.
ReplyDeleteThe local newspapers/tv stations in this impoverished/dying (post steel/coal) area of Appalachia West Virginia and Ohio (timesleaderonline.com, theintelligencer.net, www.wtrf.com, www.wtov9.com) chose to NOT cover/superficially cover....
ReplyDeleteInteresting that there is no coverage on wju.edu's official site of the "retirement" of McAteer, WJU Provost/Vice President/SPO head/NTTChead.....
Does SaveWJU know 1)how much of the millions of NASA monies to NTTC/WJU have been suspended follwing the massive federal raid that seized most of the computers in the NTTC/WJU building? and 2)are any numbers detailing the apparent budget deficits at WJU available to the public?
PS (money problems for Jesuits)..."Removed" WJU pres Giulietti apparently came to WJU from Georgetown and current "premier Jesuit university" Georgetown pres DeGioia (salary/benes@$1M/year)spoke at his "inauguration": check out theHoya.com for budget deficits and you find Georgetown...at $50K/year tuition...is routinely losing as much as $20-30M/year, due to the continuing $30M+/year deficit(s) at GU's troubled medical center (post "selling" troubled/old Georgetown U Hospital to Medstar): so the Society of Jesuits apparently has a money problem for the universities they run....
Comment #3 is correct about the Intelligencer's superficial coverage in the WJU-NASA affair during the past 33 months. The 8/3/9 NASA audit report was not even covered by the Intelligencer; President Giulietti was fired immediately after that NASA report. The AP's Vicki Smith has consistently written fact-filled WJU articles printed in newspapers from Anchorage to Miami, but not in Wheeling.
DeleteComment #3 asks about current NASA cash and WJU budget. Openness is a dirty word at WJU; therefore, we have no current information on the NASA programs and the WJU deficit. However, we do know that the National Technology Transfer Center does only a small portion of what it once did. WJU has lost many federal programs. Fr. Giulietti had answers to the budget problem, but he is gone.
And, yes, some other Jesuit schools have money problems, but only WJU has circled the wagons, and adopted a fortress mentality.
Today's Washington Post digs up McAteer's pre-WJU background. See: Davitt McAteer on the hot seat again? at http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/in-the-loop/post/davitt-mcateer-on-the-hot-seat-again/2012/05/10/gIQA0q7pFU_blog.html
ReplyDeletePer 5.10.2012 WP article: McAteer is consistent in living the good life with federal dollars...
ReplyDeleteComment #3 is correct that the continuing budget deficits at the "premier" Jesuit university (Georgetown) are PUBLICALLY available online at the student newspaper, theHoya.com, and the troubling deficits are due to the "problem GU Medical Center": USNews rankings for GU Med continue to precipitously decline with a 2012 ranking #48....
Why don't WJU alums press the federal government to REQUIRE any school receiving federal funds to publically disclose annual budget results, per those published in theHoya for Georgtetown?
Given his "association" with McAteer, doubt if either WVUMorgantown educated "senator joe" Manchin/previous (defeated) rep Mollohan would be interested in said legislation!
Apparently, this is not the first time questions have been raised about McAteer's ethics:
ReplyDeletePosted at 12:23 PM ET, 05/10/2012
Davitt McAteer on the hot seat again?
By Al Kamen
Former federal mine safety chief J. Davitt McAteer at a meeting in Charleston, W. Va. in 2006. (BOB BIRD - AP) Some Labor Department officials may remember longtime Loop favorite J. Davitt McAteer, former chief of the Mine Safety and Health Administration during the Clinton administration.
McAteer worked his way into this column several times during his tenure. On one occasion he had his special assistant babysit his five kids for a couple nights at his home in West Virginia while he and his wife took off to Eastern Europe. (Labor Department ethics folks dinged him for that.)
He was in the column again when he instructed staff that money was tight and so they needed to cut travel, hiring and supplies. The staff derisively told us they thought he might want to cut back on his overseas travel.
In addition to the 17-day Eastern Europe tour in 1998, he went the next year to Luxembourg, Switzerland, South Africa and down to Latin America for 11 days. He explained that the governments of those countries had invited him. Unclear if they forced him to go.
And then there was that reckless driving plea in 2000 after his car ran off the road into some shrubs.
Still, he landed on his feet after he left government, returning to his alma mater, Wheeling Jesuit University, and becoming a vice president of the school in 2005 and in charge of the Sponsored Programs Office. So all worked out well.
Uh-oh.
A report this week says he’s leaving the school when his contract expires on June 30. His departure, his attorney, Stephen Jory, told the Associated Press, has nothing to do with a fraud investigation into how McAteer and the school handled millions of dollars of federal grants..
A NASA fraud investigator recently filed a search warrant affidavit in federal court saying there were indications the school fraudulently billed NASA millions in expenses, citing, among other things, McAteer’s salary, which, the AP said, surged from $130,300 in 2006 to $230,659 by 2008.
“We are confident,”Jory e-mailed us Thursday, “after reviewing past audits and opinions of counsel, that there was no wrongdoing” by the school “or its Sponsored Programs Office in the use and administration of government funds.”
Now that Mr. McAteer and his $230K federally financed annual compensation are no longer part of Wheeling Jesuit, despite the proclamation from WJU leadership that "there was no wrongdoing", the university remains financially responsible for the possible multimillions the feds may demand be repaid resultant from the ongoing NASA fraud investigation.
ReplyDeleteAnd now another crisis for the Jesuits: Steubenville Franciscan has decided to stop offering heath insurance to students/staff resultant from Obamacare, and "premier Jesuit Georgetown U" made the 5.16.12 headline Washington Post story: Washington Cardinal Wuerl asks current GU pres DeGioia to rescind his invitation to HHS Sebelius to speak at the GU Health Policy Institute graduation. Georgetown currently covers birth control prescribed for therapeutic purposes....was this accurately reflected by the recent national appearances of Georgetown's Ms. Fluke?
is it true that Bransfield no longer even lives at his Wheeling home but has bought/built a home in Charleston where he resides on a near permanent basis?
ReplyDeleteIt was impossible for McAteer, a Democratic Party hack, to engage in federal cost accounting misconduct for nearly a decade without the complicity and/or profound incompetence of the university's accountants, lawyers, and board members. McAteer may be the main perp, but he was enabled. The blame for this catastrophic imbroglio must fall squarely on the shoulders of WJU's shameful board of directors and the Jesuits themselves, who wielded ultimate control over the management of the university via the appointed Jesuit trustees. The board should resign en masse, preferably before indictment. If the Jesuits fail to perform a thorough introspection and examination of conscience to understand how and why they - as a religious order-- have failed to live up to their own claimed standards of Catholic morality, then WJU will be only one in a long line of collapsing and bankrupted Jesuit institutions.
ReplyDeleteTime does heal all wounds. It heals by allowing us to observe events and to understand why they happened. Obviously, from the affidavit recently filed, Fr. Julio Giulietti, in February, 2008, was displeased with the findings of the NASA IG's audit of the federal programs. It's likely that he made his displeasure known to McAteer and to the Board. It was no secret that WJU could not afford McAteer's generous salary, nor could it afford repeated audit problems with the federal government. Events which followed were a stunning reversal of the orderly operation of the university. Giulietti was fired after many months of tension with several Board members who did not hesitate to make their displeasure with him public and McAteer was named Acting President by some entity which still remains unknown.
ReplyDeleteThe Sad WJU Alum above is correct on all points but one: There need be no mass resignation of the WJU Board but without a doubt, every Board member who participated in the tragic events of 2008/2009 and remain in their Board positions and those Jesuits who facilitated their unprofessional conduct should precede McAteer out the door on June 30. Their conduct has been a disgrace.
SadWJUAlums...you have no one to blame but yourselves: You made no effort to seek academic and ethical integrity at the time of Giulietti's "facilitated" departure/*McAteer's "assumption" to the presidency. Suggest you actually read the USNews rankings to comprehend that WJU is NOT an elite university, and is nearly as weakly rated as UWVMorgantownAppalachia, where "cronies in charge" created courses/grades on official transcripts for "senator" Joe's daughter! The NTTC federally funded multimillion dollar center at WJU, that has NO engineering department and few total students, is simply (Byrd) political pork [interestingly, WV Byrd chose NOT to be buried in WV, but in a private cemetery in Arlington, Virginia!; *McAteer = "friend" of "senator" Joe.]
ReplyDeleteWJU, with few students, now faces deserved and severe financial jeopardy, with responsibility for the multimillions the feds will demand be repaid.
Exacerbating: 1)"dying" Appalachia Wheeling [has lost >50% of its population] is nothing more than empty/dilapidated buildings of a former coal/steel town: not the type of locality to attract achieving/out of state students; 2)local newspapers [Intelligencer/Timesleader] are weakly educated with reporters lacking ethics and integrity [re:local editorial demanding "rapid resolution of the WJU federal fraud debacle!"]
Suggest SadWJUAlums consult USNews and matriculate at the graduate level at an elite university, as ranked by USNews: NONE in WV, ONE in Ohio!
In 2009 the published debt of Wheeling Jesuit was $35M, with nearly NO endowment. What is the current debt?
ReplyDeleteAs a student of WJU, WHAT!? We have $35 million in DEBT?! And I thought the endowment was $19.2 million, at least according to Wikipedia.
ReplyDeleteRead this website for Giulietti related posts and you will confirm the 2009 published debt of Wheeling Jesuit @ $35M, and read the 2012 massive federal raid affidavit: significant millions of the federal funds were illegally used to fund the "educational mission" of the school.
ReplyDeleteU.S. News lists the WJU endowment at $16,686,699 as of 2010.
ReplyDeleteThe WJU debt is at least $35,000,000 and heavy interest is being paid. That figure does not include whatever might be ordered for restitution in the criminal investigation of WJU.
Prez Beyer's letter of 4/18/12 claims that WJU hired a "former United States Attorney." So who is he, and why is he invisible? Or was that letter just another lie?