Educator Busted In (Alleged) $3.5M Fraud Scheme!

A former New York University administrator has been charged in an alleged $3.5 million scheme to embezzle funds.

Prosecutors claim 57-year-old Cindy Tappe, the former finance director for NYU, set up a number of shell corporations and used the corporations to illegally shuffle money.

False invoices were also crafted and sent to ‘contractors’ Tappe is accused of manufacturing.

According to sources, Tappe allegedly siphoned at least $660,000 of the $3.5 million to herself—$80,000 of which was spent on a pool for her luxury home.

Her colleagues discovered the fraud in 2018, however when Tappe was confronted she reportedly continued to obfuscate and claimed that the ‘contractors’ were the most affordable option she could find…

Here’s more on the story:

Today @ManhattanDA brags of indictment of CINDY TAPPE, 57, for $3.5 million 6-year fraud relating to two New York University programs… intended for minority and women owned businesses. pic.twitter.com/QIuhR2quZJ

— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) December 19, 2022

Cindy Tappe is accused of transferring the money into bank accounts via two shell companies she had created, and using at least $660,000 of the funds to renovate her Connecticut home and other personal expenses, including an $80,000 swimming pool. pic.twitter.com/KziuQ36luR

— Al Mayadeen English (@MayadeenEnglish) December 21, 2022

The New York Post reports:

The scam started with a $23 million grant awarded to NYU’s Metropolitan Center for Research on Equity and Transformation, where Tappe worked, with the cash meant to go to state programs to help special education students and those learning English.

A percentage of the funds was required to go to “certified minority and women owned business enterprises,” which then would administer the programs, prosecutors said.

Tappe allegedly arranged for three such subcontractors to receive some $3.5 million in grant money.

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Ex-NYU director, Cindy Tappe, is charged with spending state funds on $80K swimming pool, is 'put on leave' from her new job at Yale

Prosecutors say she used $3.4m in grant money to fund a lavish lifestyle and $660K in renovations to her Connecticut home

Put on leave… RUFKM~ pic.twitter.com/MNNTfkszl5

— TruthInBytes (@bytesintruth) December 21, 2022

In a statement, the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, said that Cindy Tappe's NYU embezzlement scheme had harmed "our city’s minority- and women-owned business enterprises by denying them the chance to fairly compete for and secure the funding." https://t.co/Rat5Qtba4q

— NYT Metro (@NYTMetro) December 20, 2022

Reuters claimed:

Tappe had allegedly funneled the money using two shell companies, as well as by drafting false invoices for three subcontractors, who made between three to six percent without doing the work, the district attorney’s office said.