One Shoe Drops: WJU to pay $2,300,000 for grant fraud

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Wheeling issued a press release on August 3, 2015, entitled Federal grant fraud claims settled with Wheeling Jesuit University.

The key provisions of the announcement are: (a) “Wheeling Jesuit University will pay the United States the sum of $2,300,000 to settle claims that it misused grant funding awarded by [NASA].” (b) “Grantees must use federal money for the purpose for which the grant was given, and for nothing else. The rules are clear.” (c) “[T]he United States was prepared to pursue” the criminal allegations against Wheeling Jesuit University if university officials did not sign the proffered agreement. (d) “The agreement does not preclude criminal charges against individuals involved in the grant fraud.”
The individuals to whom the government refers include J. Davitt McAteer and possibly other members of the then board of directors.  It is unlikely that any university employees will be indicted because they have cooperated with the federal grand jury.

The 25-page affidavit signed on 2/16/12 by a NASA Special Agent at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland said WJU’s fraudulently billed expenses range from McAteer’s salary, which surged from $130,300 in 2006 to $230,659 by 2008 to cellphones, computers, and salaries for other staff including a secretary in Davitt McAteer’s Shepherdstown private law office 220 miles from the campus.

Accused homosexual predator and then board member Thomas F. (Tommy) Gleeson, S.J., will not be indicted because he died on 11/7/14.  Gleeson was one of the “Three Tricky Trustees” who illegally fired President Julio Giulietti, S.J., for no stated reason.  In October 2009, SNAP picketed against WJU because of WJU’s ongoing harboring of Gleeson.

The school’s same-day press release euphemistically states that their $2,300,000 payment will not include any “private donations.”  The truth is that all funds are fungible.  Wheeling Jesuit University has just incurred a substantial liability.

WJU has steadfastly refused to issue a public apology to President-Emeritus Julio Giulietti, S.J., who was fired when he began probing into the NASA theft, and concurrently attempted to reduce the enormous $230,659 salary of J. Davitt McAteer.

Will J. Davitt McAteer (’66) become the first WJU Hall of Honor inductee to wind up in the hoosegow?  Stay tuned.

Michael J. Fahy
Quartus