The ex-administrator at NYU stole $3.5 million in grants and spent the money on herself, including a $80,000 pool.
Prosecutors said Monday that a former director of finance at New York University stole $3.5 million meant for minority and women-owned businesses and spent some of the money on herself, like a $80,000 pool for her Connecticut home.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office says that Cindy Tappe, who is 57 years old, was charged with putting money from grants from the New York State Education Department into fake companies that she created. This was a six-year plan that was found out when she left NYU in 2018.
The indictment says that at least $660,000 of the money Tappe stole went into his own pockets. Some of the money was used to pay for expenses related to the grants or to reimburse employees.
She is said to have spent the money on things like her pool and making changes to her home in Westport, Connecticut.
The scam started when a $23 million grant was given to Tappe’s workplace at NYU, the Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and Transformation. The money was supposed to go to state programs that help students with special needs and those learning English.
Prosecutors said that a certain amount of the money had to go to “certified minority and women owned business enterprises.” These businesses would then run the programs.
Tappe is said to have set up for three of these subcontractors to get about $3.5 million in grant money. He is also said to have made fake invoices on company letterhead for each of them. The DA’s office said this made it possible for her to move a lot of the money to two fake companies she had set up and use them as her own personal slush funds.
In September 2018, an NYU program director talked to Tappe about the payments being made to the supposed subcontractors.
In response, Tappe wrote in an email that NYU had “developed good working relationships with these companies” and that she had “found no other companies that offer the same suite of services for price,” according to prosecutors.
The well-known private university told the Department of Education about the theft, and the Department of Education told the state comptroller’s office. After doing its own investigation, the office of the comptroller sent the case to the DA.
In a statement, Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said that Tappe used the money that was supposed to go to schools in need to pay her mortgage, build a pool, and live above her means.
Bragg said, “Our students who speak more than one language and students with disabilities deserve the best services, and these funds should have gone straight to their schools.”
Tom DiNapoli, the comptroller for the state of New York, said, “Cindy Tappe used her high position at NYU to send more than $660,000 in state money to companies she ran so she could live a luxurious life.”
Tappe went to Manhattan Supreme Court on Monday and pleaded not guilty to a number of charges, including money laundering, grand larceny, offering a false instrument, and making up business records.
She did not have to pay bail.
Her lawyer, Deborah Colson, would not say anything.
