Former University of Louisville education dean Robert Felner held a meeting with Thomas Schroeder in which he said he was setting up a company that would list Felner as president and Schroeder as an officer, according to a University of Rhode Island business manager who testified in U.S. District Court on Thursday.
Diana Laferriere, who attended the 2001 meeting with Felner and Schroeder, told Assistant U.S. Attorney Bryan Calhoun that Felner also told her that he wanted her to serve on the company’s board and paid her $1,000 a month for about three years for her service.
The company — the National Center on Public Education and Prevention in Illinois — was created in 2001 by Schroeder, who served as its executive director...During her testimony Thursday, Laferriere recounted how Felner told her and Schroeder in 2001 that he was setting up the Illinois center to handle the training school district personnel would need to understand and use survey data collected and analyzed by another center he had previous set up at the University of Rhode Island.
That Rhode Island center’s name — the National Center on Public Education and Social Policy — bore a striking resemblance to name of the Illinois center. Prosecutors allege the similar names were used by Felner and Schroeder to cause confusion and conceal their scheme.
Laferriere testified during the three years she received checks from the Illinois center, she had to call Schroeder each year to get him to send her the necessary tax forms so she could file her income taxes. As time went on, she became concerned she was not being paid for doing anything, and asked Felner when she was going to do any work for the center.
“He said, ‘Oh, don’t worry about it. You deserve it,’” said Laferriere, who told Felner in 2003 to stop sending her the checks....
Friday, August 20, 2010
Felner laid out plan for education company at meeting with Schroeder, witness says
Thursday, July 22, 2010
From Alleged Felner Co-conspirator Thomas Schroeder's PreTrial Memo
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Robert Felner’s trail of deceit as seen from Rhode Island
Robert L. Carothers still led the University of Rhode Island in 2008, when he placed a phone call to the University of Wisconsin-Parkside about that school’s newly hired chancellor, Robert D. Felner.
Felner had served as director of URI’s School of Education about a decade earlier, a tenure marked by great accomplishment and complaints about his behavior, particularly toward women. Carothers reached out to Felner’s new employer to make sure administrators had the full picture. Carothers began to tell Wisconsin officials about the complications with Felner, only to hear “harassment? That’s the least of our problems.”
“I said ‘what?’ ” Carothers said. He learned authorities had launched a criminal investigation in Kentucky into whether Felner had misappropriated a $694,000 federal grant. That probe eventually uncovered that Felner had embezzled $1.7 million from the URI educational research center he had founded.Felner had begun to carve himself a national reputation in the education world when he came to URI in 1996. He brought with him millions of dollars in grants and a survey he helped develop that empowered schools, for the first time, to get a read on the culture within their doors by questioning parents, teachers and students.
His story was a compelling one. He told of his days as a teenage truckdriver cut short by a persuasive rabbi who encouraged him to head back to school. His GED certificate and his Ph.D. hung on the wall. He described himself as a gritty Brooklyn kid raised in the shadow of Ebbets Field and unapologetically acknowledged that some people liked him while others did not.
Fourteen years after coming to Rhode Island, his career trajectory has crashed amid scandal. He is awaiting sentencing in western Kentucky Friday for embezzling $2.2 million from URI and the University of Louisville. Prosecutors say he and a former colleague diverted money to accounts for a dummy organization and then used it for personal expenses and investments.
“Professionally, he’s a dead man walking,” said Kenneth E. Fish, now retired from the Rhode Island Department of Education.
Interviews with more than a dozen of Felner’s colleagues, superiors and underlings throughout his three-decade career reveal a brash, yet gifted man full of possibility but hamstrung by an outsized ego and brusque manner. They describe him as a hard-driving boss who charmed those he needed and dismissed others with a terrorizing vengeance. More than one former coworker compared him to fallen former Providence Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr., a skilled politician convicted of running a corruption ring out of City Hall.
“I can’t help but see the parallels between him and Buddy Cianci,” said Fish, who specialized in middle and high school reform. “The academic world is far less forgiving than the general public.”Still, Fish admired Felner’s contributions. “He brought a tremendous resource to the state … We saw him as a partner in the Rhode Island reform effort.”
Felner declined an interview request through his lawyer, Scott C. Cox.Felner, 59, was born in Norwich, Conn., a mill town near the Rhode Island border, and spent years in New York City. After quitting high school as a teen, he went on to earn a bachelor’s degree at the University of Connecticut and a master’s and doctorate in psychology at the University of Rochester.
He spent five years as an assistant professor in clinical psychology at Yale University, beginning in 1976. It’s there that glimmers of a pattern that dogged him throughout his career appeared. Within a year, some female students circulated a petition accusing him of sexual harassment, recalls Lisa Willner, who was then a freshman at Yale.
Felner inexplicably asked Willner, an attractive 18-year-old, to assist him in a research project and offered her the chance to take graduate-level courses. At the same time, female classmates were urging her to sign the petition critical of Felner’s behavior. She remembers feeling so uncomfortable that she switched her major to avoid the conflict.
“It really had a profound impact on my life,” said Willner, now executive director of the Kentucky Psychological Association. Willner felt vindicated three decades later upon learning of the allegations her former professor faced. “The charges just kind of affirm some of the doubts and questions I had about him.”
He was investigated and cleared of the harassment allegation, according to Emanuel Donchin, who hired Felner to be the director of clinical psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1987.
Still, his rude, quarrelsome nature rubbed many of the clinical psychology faculty, students and staff wrong, said Donchin, who led the department. Though he showed skill at raising money, the department let him go in 1990, Donchin said. “There was no indication of anything unethical. He was just a lousy character.”
From there Felner headed to the university’s Institute of Government and Public Affairs, where he served as founding director of the Center for Prevention Research and Development. “He did that very successfully,” said Robert F. Rich, Felner’s boss at the institute. “I respected him.”
He cultivated partnerships with the state, community and foundations to work toward school reform, particularly in middle schools, Rich said. He attracted grants and helped create a survey, known in Rhode Island as the School Accountability for Learning and Teaching, or SALT survey, which gave schools the tools to assess progress. By questioning students, parents and faculty and establishing data based on those responses, schools for the first time could get a read on what was working in the schools and what wasn’t. They could then design pointed strategies to improve school culture, and hopefully, test scores.
“He’s assertive. Not everyone gets along well with a very assertive personality,” Rich said.
URI wooed him away, without calling to check his references, Rich said.As Felner headed to the Ocean State, a dispute erupted over who owned the intellectual property rights to the school assessment survey. It was settled that Felner and the university had developed it jointly, Rich said. Some former colleagues toasted his departure with champagne.
Felner came to URI as a professor and founding director of the School of Education in 1996, in part following a romance he would later leave for his fourth wife. URI officials say his main backer was Barbara Brittingham, then dean of URI’s College of Human Sciences and Services. Brittingham did not return several phone calls placed to her office at the New England Association of Schools and Colleges.
Felner arrived full of charm and chutzpah, Carothers said. “I think we saw him as a big-time researcher and grant getter.”
In 1997, while continuing as head of the School of Education, Felner founded the National Center on Public Education and Social Policy at URI, an education research center that contracted with school districts from Santa Monica, Calif., to Buffalo, N.Y., to develop school-improvement strategies, particularly for disadvantaged and high-need communities. The center operated as a self-supporting entity, bringing in millions of dollars in contracts from school districts nationwide as well as grants used to pay staff. Its $12-million contract with the Rhode Island Department of Education was its largest. The university did not share in the center’s income. “He was very smart and well-meaning. When he talked about kids, he did have passion,” said Julia
Steiny, who worked as a communications director under Felner and now writes an education column for The Journal. He took a novel approach toward schools based on the SALT surveys, and led the way for Rhode Island to develop a statewide system for measuring school improvement based on the survey results, she said.
At the same time, he lorded over meetings, spawning fans and detractors. A few inches over 5 feet tall and portly, he was known to pump his office chair up to make himself appear taller. He used his psychology training to study people’s personalities and then toy with them, colleagues said.
“Sometimes people have good information, good ideas even if he’s repulsive,” Fish said. “He had an enormous ego that needed to be fed all the time. Lots of strong leaders have strong egos.”
By 2001, three women had filed complaints about his “abusive” behavior, intimidation and sexual harassment, court records show. Though URI’s affirmative
action officer cleared him in all three cases, one woman, Theresa Watson, filed a civil lawsuit against Felner and URI. The suit accused the school of knowingly allowing Felner to perpetrate his actions. It was settled in 2008 under undisclosed terms.
“Anything you’ve ever read about a workplace bully he did it,” said Watson, now an elementary school teacher in Westerly. He belittled and bullied staff and then warned them “to keep things in the family,” court records show.She cast him as a puppeteer surrounded by people who took him for a hero.
Carothers said he told Felner to ease up. Felner continued at URI until 2003. “He always pushed the envelope so there was always a worry about how fast he was going,” Carothers said.
Felner’s behavior contributed to his departure, Carothers said. “We encouraged him to move on because of the harassment. He wasn’t able to overcome that,” Carothers said. “We had pretty much had it with him.”
Felner left URI with great fanfare, telling The Journal his exit was prompted by his frustration with state law that caps the number of full-time employees public universities can hire.
He was granted unpaid leave from his $174,000-a-year job when he left in 2003 to become dean of the College of Education and Human Development at the
University of Louisville, according to Robert A. Weygand, URI’s vice president of administration. That leave, which officials said was granted out of consideration for concerns involving his family, was rescinded three years later.Felner maintained his title as director of URI’s National Center on Public Education and Social Policy until 2006, continuing to serve as an unpaid mentor to its current head, Anne Seitsinger, Weygand said.
“We were not unhappy to see him leave, but he still did good work,” said now retired Provost M. Beverly Swan.
Carothers said he was annoyed that no one from the University of Louisville called to ask about Felner.
His time at Louisville would be marked by discontent. The faculty passed a no-confidence vote against him, 27 to 24, in 2006, but he remained at the university two more years despite 35 grievances about his abusive behavior, said Pedros R. Portes, former chairman of the department of educational and counseling psychology.
“The administration was negligent,” said Portes, who now works at the University of Georgia. “A sociopath was allowed to run loose in higher education.”
Still, administrators credited Felner with raising the University of Louisville’s profile and establishing collaborative relationships with community groups.
He next secured a position as chancellor at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside in 2008. This time, Carothers placed a call to the university system vice president about Felner. He soon learned a federal investigation was afoot.
“I thought he was arrogant and difficult to work with, but I never thought he was a crook,” Carothers said.
The inquiry led to URI, where federal authorities say he and a former Illinois coworker, Thomas Schroeder, embezzled $1.7 million from the National Center on Public Education and Social Policy from 2001 to 2008. Under the scheme, prosecutors say the pair created a phony nonprofit in 2001 with a name deliberately similar to the URI center: the National Center on Public Education and Prevention.They then diverted money intended for the URI center into bank accounts for the dummy organization. The URI center did the work, while the phony entity did nothing at all, authorities say. The pair, they say, used the money for personal gain. Felner owned properties in Florida, Illinois, Kentucky and Jamestown in Rhode Island.
In addition, federal prosecutors say Felner and Schroeder used the dummy account to embezzle another $576,000 from the University of Louisville and attempted to skim another $240,000. Felner, now of Prospect, Ky., pleaded guilty in January to conspiring to launder money, mail fraud, conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service and tax evasion. He faces 63 months in prison. Schroeder’s trial is set for August.
URI officials insist there were no indications of financial wrongdoing because the center remained “in the black.” Reviews of its books by the center’s business manager and the business manager of the College of Human Science and Services didn’t find cause for suspicion because the accounts remained flush, Weygand said.
“As long as a contract is successful … you’re never going to catch on,” URI’s general counsel, Louis Saccoccio, said. Plus, Felner camouflaged his activities by signing contracts in violation of university protocol and creating a shadow organization to which he funneled money, he said.
“The people who worked for him, he was almost like a cult figure,” Saccoccio said. “They had full trust in him.” The center’s work was so well respected that its business practices were overlooked, Weygand said.
Even after his departure, Felner remained in contact with URI. E-mail records obtained by The Journal from the University of Louisville show that he and his former colleagues traded messages about growing financial concerns at the URI center through 2008. Seitsinger wrote she didn’t know if they could pay salaries. Business manager Diana Laferriere asked whether he was giving out loans.
Weygand now attributes that financial hardship to Felner’s financial misdealings. “He was considered a god in many senses,” Weygand said.
Felner, now divorced from his fourth wife, Marilyn, has agreed to pay $1.64 million in restitution to URI and forfeit properties he owns in Florida and Illinois. Weygand said he is “not overly optimistic” the full sum will be repaid.
In the aftermath of the case, URI has initiated unannounced, random audits of its 39 other self-supporting entities, Weygand said. They vary from the Coastal Institute to The John Hazen White Sr. Center for Ethics and Public Service to the crime lab. Previously, the center’s accounts, like that of the other self-sustaining entities, were not audited. The business manager of the colleges that oversee the entities will monitor the accounts. All contracts will be reviewed.
The center — now operating under a new name as the Center for School Improvement and Education Policy — has been reduced from 16 employees in 2008 to 2 today and is rebuilding its reputation after the loss of Felner’s expertise,
Weygand said. It has one contract: a $67,000 deal with the Rhode Island Department of Education that expires in June.
The center cannot get grants from the Carnegie Foundation because it has not completed reports on how it used its money, according to the foundation. It has also been hurt by the economy and schools are facing deep cutbacks, Weygand said.
Rhode Island last year awarded the SALT survey project and management of its Infoworks database to independent nonprofit organizations after a competitive bidding process in which the URI center was a contender.
The state, said Elliot Krieger, spokesman for the Education Department, never encountered any problems with the center’s work, which always came in on time and on budget. “Even today nobody disputes the quality of his work,” Carothers said.
Despite the caliber of his achievements, Felner’s arrest did not come as a shock to some.
“It was more of a disappointment than a surprise,” said Fish, formerly of the state Department of Education. “There was always something about Robert Felner that was like a snake oil salesman. We were using his snake oil and it worked pretty good.”
Hat Tip to Page One
Sentencing delayed for former UofL dean Robert Felner
Former University of Louisville education dean Robert Felner’s sentencing has been rescheduled for May 17.
Felner, who pleaded guilty in January to nine federal charges, including tax evasion, was due to be sentenced Friday. Scott C. Cox, who is Felner’s attorney, said the sentencing date was moved because of a scheduling conflict.
As part of his plea, Felner agreed to serve 63 months in prison in connection with defrauding U of L and another university of $2.3 million. He also agreed to pay restitution of $510,000 to UofL, $1.64 million to the University of Rhode Island and $88,750 to the Rock Island County Council on Addiction in Illinois. Additionally, he agreed to forfeit property to the federal government that he owns in Florida and Illinois, as well as bank accounts of undisclosed values.
Felner was indicted in October 2008 in Louisville on charges of mail fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering, income tax evasion and conspiracy to impede and impair the Internal Revenue Service.
The charges against Felner carried a maximum penalty of 75 years in prison...
Thomas Schroeder of Port Byron, Ill., a co-defendant of Felner, is scheduled to go to trial Aug. 9...
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
Felner to plead guilty to siphoning millions from Louisville, Rhode Island U
Former University of Louisville education dean Robert Felner will plead guilty Friday in a case in which he and a colleague are accused of defrauding U of L and another university out of $2.3 million, his attorney said.
Attorney Scott C. Cox said Monday the plea is part of an agreement Felner made with the U.S. Attorney’s Office. He would not disclose any terms of the deal, including which charges Felner would plead guilty to or how much jail time he may receive. Felner was not available for comment.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office said Monday that it would have no comment until Felner formally enters his plea — he is accused of funneling millions of dollars through non-profit centers he helped create, then using the money to buy private property and make other personal expenditures.
A trial for Felner and his co-defendant, Thomas Schroeder of Port Byron, Ill., was scheduled to begin Feb. 1. Schroeder could still be tried in February...Felner’s charges carry up to 75 years in prison, while Schroeder faces up to 45 years.
U of L officials released a statement Monday in which they expressed “hope that Mr. Felner will be held accountable for his actions.”
“Our College of Education and Human Development moved past Mr. Felner some time ago with the hiring of Blake Haselton as its interim dean,” the statement read. “Enrollment is up, there were a record number of graduates last school year, and we've attained a significant accreditation. Those are the chapters being written since Mr. Felner left U of L.”
While not part of the criminal case, Felner's treatment of faculty and staff at U of L’s College of Education and Human Development — and grievances against him — came to light during the investigation. Former faculty accused Felner of being vindictive, manipulative and threatening. As a result of those claims, the university revamped its grievance process, reviewed its faculty governance procedures and established an Ombuds Office to address faculty concerns and complaints.
Bryant Stamford, a former faculty member who worked at U of L for more than 30 years and who has joined other former education faculty in criticizing the university for its handling of Felner, said Monday he had “mixed feelings” about news of a plea agreement.
“… It was good that he was finally caught and held accountable for his actions, but I think all of us still sort of default back to: How is it possible that this man was allowed to operate in such a manner for years? He wasn’t operating in a vacuum.”
But blindly absolving university leadership for their contribution to that climate is inconsistent with best practice. UofL trustees should have pled guilty to that.
Monday, November 02, 2009
Judge sets Feb. 1 trial for former U of L dean
This from Nancy at C-J:
A trial date has been set for former University of Louisville education dean Robert Felner, who was indicted last year on 10 counts of mail fraud, money-laundering conspiracy and income tax evasion.
The trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 1, and Assistant U.S. Attorney Bryan Calhoun said it will take about three weeks.
Felner's colleague, Thomas Schroeder of Port Byron, Ill., who is charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, mail fraud and conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue
The trial date was set [recently] during a status conference before Judge Charles R. Simpson III. The judge told Calhoun and lawyers for Felner and Schroeder that the case has “been pending a long time. You've had plenty of time to get ready.” ...Service , will be tried at the same time.
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Chronicle: Red Tape Hid Felner's Red Flags
Former UofL Education Dean Robert Felner was big on promises.Having received a $694,000 grant from U.S. Department of Education funds, earmarked by Rep. Anne Northup, Felner promised to create an elaborate research center to help Kentucky's public schools. Five UofL faculty members, supported by a staff of four, would work at a center under an advisory board headed by Kentucky's Secretary of the Education Cabinet Virginia Fox. The state would be carpeted with surveys. There would be papers and conferences.
Too bad Fox didn't know there was a grant.
Too bad none of the surveys were conducted.
Too bad the Kentucky Department of Education didn't know anything about the surveys.
Too bad there were no papers or conferences.
Too bad most of the money had disappeared.
By the spring of 2008, all but $96,000 of the grant had been spent, but none of the tasks listed in Mr. Felner's proposal had been accomplished.
So he approached Louisville officials for $200,000 more to enter into a subcontract with his buddy Thomas Schroeder's nonprofit organization in Illinois - a group that had already received $450,000 from the Felner grant.
Felner assured UofL officials that the surveys Schroeder was supposedly conducting with students and teachers in Kentucky would "let us give the feds something that should make them very happy about the efficiency and joint commitment of the university to doing a good job with an earmark, as I know we will want more from this agency," he wrote in an e-mail message on June 18.
Two days later, as Felner was preparing to leave for a new job at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, federal agents raided Felner's UofL offices and confiscated his files and laptops.
Turns out Uof L was not Felner's first rodeo.By October a federal grand jury had indicted Felner on nine counts of mail fraud, money laundering, and tax evasion. The indictment said Schroeder's National Center on Public Education and Prevention was a shell organization that existed to funnel money into the Felner and Schroeder's personal bank accounts. Prosecutors calculate that the men made off with the $694,000 earmarked grant plus $1.7-million in payments from three urban school districts connected to Felner when he was in Rhode Island.
But that's not the way it's supposed to work. There's supposed to be oversight. UofL officials made some promises too.
In their upcoming June 12 issue, the Chronicle on Higher Education takes aim at the lack of oversight at UofL.
Provost Shirley C. Willihnganz, seemed to admit that UofL's procedures could be overridden by an individual of high standing, such as a dean.When Louisville accepted the earmarked grant, its officials signed the boilerplate language attached to most federal contracts. The university, they promised, had "the institutional, managerial, and financial capability ... to ensure proper planning, management, and completion of the project."
But did it in fact have that capability? For several months in 2007, Mr. Felner charged almost $37,000 of his salary against the grant, but there is no evidence that he ever worked on the project. (In an October 2008 memorandum, Robert N. Ronau, the college of education's associate dean for research, declared that he knew of no
reports, articles, or other products that resulted from the grant.). Federal regulations require that universities use "suitable means of verification that the work was performed" when they prepare time-and-effort reports; Louisville officials declined to comment on how Mr. Felner's time-and-effort reports were processed.) And when he sent his first big payment to the Illinois group, Mr. Felner constructed the deal as a personal-services contract instead of a formal subcontract, which would have been subject to more oversight by the university. But no one corrected that error for more than a year.
"I think what we had in this case was a person who abused the system. And so it's not so much that our policies were bad or that our procedures were bad. We had a person who did not follow them and did not respect them."But that explanation goes nowhere with former UofL education faculty who say they had plenty of reason to distrust Mr. Felner.
"This person was a dean," says Ms. Willihnganz, the provost. "And deans here have a very wide breadth of control. They have a lot of authority. I think, in fact, no one else here at this university could have gotten some of those things through. Because he was a dean, he was trusted."
Beginning in 2004, the university's grievance officers were approached dozens of times by faculty members and students with complaints about Mr. Felner's temperament and personnel decisions. Many of those records were first described last year by Page One Kentucky, a political blog that has aggressively covered Mr. Felner's story (and whose comment section has become a meeting ground for aggrieved faculty members at Louisville).The Chronicle lists the most egregious alleged offenses which include harassment of a female grad student, threats, intimidation, violations of governance policies, questionable expenditures and a generally oppressive atmosphere in the department. This was followed by a 27-24 "vote of no confidence" against Felner.
By the time university leadership finally recognized that they had been suckered by Felner's unmet promises they were stuck cleaning up Felner's mess. That didn't go all that well.After the vote, Ms. Willihnganz hired a mediation company called Just Solutions to review morale at the college of education — but after interviewing many faculty members, the company never filed a final report.
"I talked to a lot of people" after the no-confidence vote, Ms. Willihnganz says. "There were detractors, but there were also supporters. My hope was that Just Solutions could come in and find some common ground to go forward. They completed some faculty interviews — but in all honesty, at that point I realized that they weren't going to be able to accomplish what I had hoped."
Several months later, a faculty member circulated an anonymous note that read, "It appears that the Provost has chosen to bury that [Just Solutions] report without giving any feedback to faculty. ... Now the dean likes to taunt people about how nothing came of any of our complaints."
President James Ramsey and Willihnganz circled the wagons, inferred that faculty complaints were only from the disgruntled who refused to make necessary changes and Ramsey called their complaints anonymous crap.
Calls for Ramsey's resignation could be heard but he was supported by Louisville's board.
Last September he and 20 other faculty members who left the college of education during Mr. Felner's tenure wrote to Louisville's Board of Trustees, asking it to scrutinize how complaints about Mr. Felner had been handled by Ms. Willihnganz and by James R. Ramsey, the university's president.
"Felner often bragged openly at faculty meetings that he had the full support of the provost and president," the letter said. "Faculty should feel free to speak their mind
and be counted. Yet, when faculty did exactly that, they were systematically ignored and targeted for further abuse by Felner."
Former county superintendent and Council for Better Education president Blake Haselton was appointed interim dean of the college of education. Unlike his predecessor, Mr. Haselton's background promises steady leadership, not flashy research grants.
University-wide accounting and research-compliance reforms were undertaken but some current and former faculty members are skeptical that the reforms will go far enough - or that all parties who erred during the debacle will be held appropriately accountable.The Chronicle concludes that too much red tape hid what should have been red flags to university overseers.
HOW RED TAPE MIGHT HIDE RED FLAGS
Does that fragmentation allow some things to slip through the cracks? Robert D. Felner, a former dean of education at Louisville, has been indicted on charges that he misappropriated a $694,000 federal grant.
At one point, Mr. Felner set up a subcontract as a personal-services contract, which allowed him to bypass some layers of supervision.
In March, Louisville's Board of Trustees received a report on plans to improve the system. Deans will have less unilateral power to make purchases, and the university will "develop a central process to monitor research projects for compliance."
Belated hat tip to Page One Kentucky.
Friday, May 08, 2009
Felner Seeks Change of Venue due in part to "Intense Scrutiny on Local Internet blogs."
Cox claimed his case was damaged by numerous Courier-Journal articles and editorials, WHAS broadcasts, various radio programs and intense scrutiny on local Internet blogs. So he wants the case moved to Paducah, Bowling Green or Owensboro.Felner's lawyer wants trial moved from Louisville
Media coverage called prejudicial
Felner and a colleague, Thomas Schroeder of Port Byron, Ill., pleaded not guilty in October to federal charges of mail fraud, conspiracy to commit money laundering and defrauding the Internal Revenue Service. Both are free on bond.
According to a motion filed by his attorney, Scott C. Cox, Felner has been "the subject of an extraordinary amount of prejudicial pretrial publicity within the Louisville jury division." The motion referred to the media coverage as "long-standing, widespread, and inflammatory."
...because the Internet doesn't go there?
Cox also asked the court to sever the trials of Felner and Schroeder.
According to Cox, Schroeder has repeatedly implicated Felner "as the sole wrongdoer" in interviews with law enforcement officials and federal prosecutors. And Felner, he noted, has given a lengthy statement to authorities in which he implicates Schroeder.
Page One has also learned,
Robert Felner’s lawyers filed a motion with the court to use an in-depth jury questionnaire.
Among the questions Cox wants to ask:
Looks like there'll be no jury duty for me.Do you hold any strong opinions regarding the University of Louisville or its
leadership?Do you blog on the Internet and/or maintain your own personal
webpage or weblog?Please describe your opinion (if any) of college professors or deans of universities?
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Felner's Lame Explanation
I've done all these stupid things.
I know it. And I'm in some trouble."
--Robert Felner
Former University of Louisville education dean Robert Felner
told federal investigators last summer that he and an Illinois colleague [Thomas Schroeder] used federal grant money to invest in properties around the country because they were trying to build up a nonprofit company that they had created for educational research, according to a 320-page transcript of the interview...In the June 20 interview...Felner acknowledged that he deposited into the Louisville account $450,000 in checks paid from a U of L federal grant that was intended to create a different center at U of L to help schools boost achievement under the No Child Left Behind law.
He also said he deposited payments made to the Illinois center from school districts in New York and other states for contract work he said he did.Federal officials said during the interview that Felner later moved that money into investment and personal accounts, or made cash withdrawals. According to investigators, Felner also used the money to purchase four properties -- two in Florida and one each in Oldham County and Rhode Island.They say he also used money from the accounts to have landscaping done at the properties, pay property taxes and mortgage costs and fix a home spa.The properties are all in Felner's name, but he told investigators during the interview that they were bought as investments for the Illinois-based center..."The reason we invested in the houses, the reason we brokered the account were to just to try to build something up so we could actually have the money to do the kind of work that we wanted to do," Felner told investigators during the daylong interview, which took place June 20, 2008, at U of L's College of Education and Human Development.But that isn't allowed under regulations governing federal grants, according to James Tracy, vice president of research at the University of Kentucky.
When it comes to federal grants, the general rule is: "You personally cannot gain or divert federal funding to benefit yourself," Tracy said.
"You can take a salary from a grant, but you have to say that and you have to account for that at the university," he said, adding that what Felner said he was doing "doesn't sound reasonable."
Nobody around here, I mean, I'm sorry, but nobody around here submits theirProvost Shirley Willihnganz admitted previously that faculty had not always filed such forms, but that the university has since improved its monitoring.
conflict-of-interest forms," Felner said.
Sunday, April 05, 2009
Catching Up on Robert Felner
In March, UofL released its audit of the College of Education and Human Development in the wake of the Robert Felner saga.
PageOne Kentucky reported UofL failed to follow its own internal processes regarding a personal service contract involving grant funds suggesting that the university can't effectively audit itself. The university's audit disagreed.
By the end of the month the court held a hearing to determine if comments Felner made during the interview preceeding his arrest could be used against him in a criminal trial.
This from C-J:
During a six-hour-plus interview with federal investigators last summer, former University of Louisville education dean Robert Felner went from being described as confident by investigators and a colleague to saying he was "freaked" and asking if he could go to jail.Finally, in an apparent abundance of support, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, Edward C. Halperin, dean of the School of Medicine at the University of Louisville equated the Felner affair to the Duke Lacrosse scandal warning in C-J:
"I'm starting to feel like I'm getting thrown under the bus," Felner said in a tape-recorded conversation with investigators that was played in court today during a hearing to decide if comments he made during the interview can be used against him in a criminal trial...
UofL Police Sgt. Jeffrey Jewell and U.S. Postal Inspector Jason Tatum... maintained ... that Felner did not invoke his right to a lawyer.
Recordings of the interview include Felner asking the investigators on several occasions whether he needed an attorney. At one point, Jewell responded: "That's your decision ... I won't talk you into it and I won't talk you out of it."
Cox also asked Jewell and Tatum if they told Felner that he could leave the interview at any time and had the right not to answer their questions. Both men said they did not tell Felner that, but Jewell said he repeatedly told Felner he was not under arrest.
During questioning by Cox, Jewell said he felt that Felner was "being deceptive in his responses."The tape includes segments where Jewell appears to put pressure on Felner to talk. Jewell tells Felner he plans on getting his IRS files, and that he knows Felner has "criminal problems."
"I don't want you to get caught up in lying to me OK?" Jewell said. "I can help you."
Cox has argued that Felner did not know he was free to leave because he was escorted to and from the bathroom and his car, and in at least two instances during the interview was asked to sit down.
In a tape-recorded exchange with Jewell at the end of the interview, Felner acknowledged he knew he was not under arrest, but said he did not know he had the option of leaving or not talking to the agents.
"I felt like I was escorted everywhere. I couldn't go anywhere. If I made a move to get up and leave, then I was in trouble," he said to Jewell. "... I didn't feel like I could leave the premises."
Fair enough. We look forward to reading his next letter to the editor when the court has ruled.In view of the controversy swirling around former Dean Robert Felner and Thomas Schroeder, their recent indictments on mail fraud, money laundering conspiracy and income tax evasion, and the collateral accusations made regarding oversight procedures at the University of Louisville, I would like to offer some lessons I learned during the Duke lacrosse episode that might be of use to others:
Don't rush to judgment...no one has been convicted of anything. All citizens are innocent until proven guilty. We have no idea whether, in reference to the grant money in question, there is a "scandal of substantial depth and magnitude" until all the facts are made available and the matter has been addressed in the courts...
Hat tip to PageOne.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Prosecutors Oppose Separate Trial For Felner, Co-Defendant
Felner and business associate Schroeder are accused of fraudulently obtaining more than $2 million in grant money from UofL and the University of Rhode Island. Both men have pleaded not guilty.
This from WLKY:
In a motion filed Monday, U.S. attorneys argued that the evidence against Felner and Schroeder is nearly "identical," and that there's no need for a separate trial.
"Regardless of the intertwined evidence, the defendant can not demonstrate that prejudice warranting severance would result if the defendants were tried together," wrote assistant U.S. Attorney Bryan Calhoun.
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Schroeder Blames Felner, Wants Separate Trial
Citing "the gross disparity of proof against the two Defendants, [and] the presence of antagonistic and mutually exclusive defenses," indicted co-conpirator Thomas Schroeder has asked the US District Court in Louisville for a separate trial."The fact that Thomas Schroeder is alleged to have received approximately 296,000 over eight years in connection with his work at his Illinois non-profit corporation (which he properly reported on his tax returns), while Robert Felner gained nearly two and a half million in fraudulent proceeds, is so great a disparity as to warrant separate trials of these two individuals."
"The indictment alleges Robert Felner – alone – committed repeated acts of tax evasion in the years 2002 through 2007, by his individual failure to report income (fraud proceeds he alone received) totaling $1,478,759.00." ...
Friday, February 13, 2009
Has Ramsey's Post-Felner PR Campaign Resorted to Lies?
"I'm not involved in it, and really, the Provost is not involved in it." ...
"There were four grievances filed, against the former dean and none of them really made it to my desk as a problem."
And if Ramsey didn't see any real problems, why not?
As PageOne Kentucky reported, in 2005 the College of Education and Human Development was responsible for 42% (13) of faculty grievance consultations campus-wide. The 2006 report from Faculty Grievance Officer Suzanne Meeks showed that 15 (56%) of the 27 grievance consultations that took place were from the CEHD. Meeks confirmed in her letter that the Provost was very well aware of the problems.
Due to the number of consultations from CEHD, and the level of negative affect associated with those consultations, I have worked with the Provost’s office to recommend that they use administrative mechanisms to restore morale, faculty governance, and collegial interaction there. Although I believe interventions have been attempted, it is not be sense that they have yet been effective.
Again in 2007 more than 33% of the grievance consultations on campus came from the College of Education.
No problem?
Meeks reported to the Faculty Senate,
As with previous years, a disproportionate number of consultations have related to the College of Education and Human Development (one-third). Over the three years of my tenure as FGO, I have consulted with at least one-third of the CEHD faculty. Throughout this time, I have heard talk of retaliation against faculty members who file grievances or requests for mediation. The majority of those I have spoken with are not willing to file grievances because of this fear of retaliation, which extends to those who testify at grievance hearings as well. This situation demonstrates a significant weakness in the grievance system, in that there is no way to prevent such retaliation when one files a complaint against someone who has the power to determine work load agreements and salary increases, approve expenditures, and allocate resources.
Is Ramsey suggesting he and Provost Shirley Willihnganz were unaware of faculty senate proceedings? Both admitted they discounted the rare "no confidence" taken against Felner.
More likely, they didn't want to see the complaints as "a problem" - therefore, they weren't. In their minds Felner deserved credit for raising CEHD's ranking in US News and World Report. In his now famously unfortunate quip, Ramsey reduced such complaints to "anonymous crap." Calling faculty who were afraid to put their names on such complaints “cheap,” Ramsey credited Felner with “bringing about change that needed to be made.”
Willihnganz acknowledged that "the heat on this one is on us."
Now Ramsey says, "We're taking this very seriously," and called the whole episode "an opportunity to improve."
In an August letter, Ramsey assured the university community that an audit would take place. Now, the quality of that audit is being called into question. Page One Kentucky now reports,
Thanks to open records requests, we have been able to determine that there isn’t an audit per se. ...What is available, however, is a PowerPoint presentation from [Cotton + Allen] given to the Board of Trustees. It’s ‘Grants Management Internal Control - Preliminary Report to the Board of Trustees.’See it here.
Meanwhile, WLKY reports, a federal judge will hear arguments on March 25th about whether to suppress evidence in Felner's fraud case. Judge Charles R. Simpson also ruled against a separate motion asking him to suppress evidence taken from Felner's new office at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside.
Friday, February 06, 2009
Ramsey Appoints Ombudsperson
Apparently UofL President James Ramsey doesn't want to hear it. Plus, in partial response to the administration's lack of fidelity to its own policies - a faculty committee recently recomended the addition of a university ombudsperson.
Ramsey wasted no time attending to the committee's recommendation.
This from Nancy Rodriguez at the Courier Journal:
U of L appoints ombudsman
The University of Louisville has appointed a longtime faculty member to provide ombudsman services to faculty and staff.
Dennis Hall, professor of English, will serve as interim ombudsman. He will hold the post until the appointment of a university ombudsman, who will be selected by the provost from a slate recommended by the faculty and staff senates, according to university officials...
The office's creation is a response to concerns raised over the handling of grievances and complaints involving former U of L education Dean Robert Felner, who a federal grand jury indicted in October on 10 counts of mail fraud, money-laundering, conspiracy and income-tax evasion.
Felner and former associate Thomas Schroeder face charges of fraudulently obtaining nearly $2.3 million in grant and contract money from the universities of Louisville and Rhode Island. Both have both pleaded not guilty and have been released on unsecured bonds.
The Ombuds website is under development.
(Hey C-J! Why the switch in gender reference? I didn't find it in my AP Style Manual. UofL labeled the position "ombudsperson" but C-J changed it to "ombudsman." True, a man was selected for the position. But unless men are also referred to "person" doesn't that create a situation where man = man; but woman = person. That reduces "person" to a euphemism, doesn't it?)
Friday, January 23, 2009
Prosecutor denies Felner detained, denied counsel
This from Nancy Rodriguez in C-J:Former U of L dean asks court
to disregard June '08 interview
Former University of Louisville education dean Robert Felner was not held against his will, nor did he ask for an attorney during a seven-hour interview with federal authorities in June, according to a motion filed by federal prosecutors.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Bryan Calhoun filed the motion after Felner's attorney asked a judge last month to suppress statements Felner made to a U of L detective and a U.S. postal inspector during a June 20, 2008 interview at the College of Education and Human Development...
US Attorney David Huber, who had been handling the Felner case, announced his resignation earlier this month, as is customary for US Attorneys who serve at the pleasure of the president.
...Defense attorney Scott Cox argued in his suppression motion that Felner believed he was in custody and was not free to leave...
...Cox asked in a related motion filed in December that Felner's books and papers, seized during a search at the University of Wisconsin-Parkside where Felner was going to start work, be suppressed on the grounds that the search was unconstitutional...
Calhoun responnded that while Felner asked investigators if he "should" obtain an attorney, he never stated that he wanted one.
"Felner did not ask for an attorney until the conclusion of the interview, at which point investigators assisted him in locating a phone book to contact an attorney," Calhoun stated.
Felner was indicted in October and now faces 10 counts of mail fraud, money-laundering, conspiracy and income-tax evasion.
Indicted co-conspirator Thomas Schroeder of Fort Byron, Ill., also is charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, mail fraud and conspiracy to defraud the IRS.
Monday, November 10, 2008
The Felner Chronicles
The Racine Post listed a series of Felner stories last week. The now infamous former UofL Education Dean Robert Felner -- who was trying to get out of town (and into a new funding stream, perhaps) was appointed Chancellor at UW-Parkside but was forced to resigned before his investiture.The Post's "cautionary tale" has been significantly expanded by KSN&C to include more of Felner's collateral damage.
Felner case may bring U of L new scrutiny on grants Oct 26
Felner Stink Sticks to Deasy Oct 25
Sifting the Ashes as UofL Oct 24
Felner in handcuffs: The Money Shot Oct 23
Reaction to Schroeder indictment in Illinois Oct 23
Felner and Schroeder Indicted Oct 22
INDICTED! He pleads innocent Oct 22
UofL President James Ramsey's Statement on the Indictment of Robert Felner Oct 22
Deasy's Easy Degree raises questions about Doctoral Quality Oct 3
Louisville Grad Students Uneasy about Felner Investigation Oct 2
Another U of L Instant Degree For Sale? Sept 26
Ramsey's PR Campaign Continues Sept 25
Deasy has Resume Errors. Ray & Associates was on the Job Sept 24
Ramsey got Felner's assurance. Now we get Stone's Sept 19
Don’t say the f word Sept 17
Felner Attny Defends Deasy's Instant Doctorate Sept 17
Ramsey says U of L broke no rules on disputed doctorate Sept 13
It's Time to Begin the Search for U of L's Next President Sept 12
SACS, NCATE Look Into U of L Accreditation Problems Sept 12
Was the Price of a Ph.D. at the U. of Louisville 9 Credits and a $375,000 Grant? Sept 11
Probed: The four-month PhD Sept 10
U of L's Integrity on the line Sept 10
Deasy Blames U of L Sept 10
Accountability for John Deasy Sept 10
Need a Doctorate? Hire Felner. Let him Chair your Committee Sept 9
At Last: The Ville's Ramsey apologizes over Felner incident Sept 6
Change agent, class clown or criminal? Sept 3
21 Former U of L Faculty complain of inaction on Felner Sept 3
University distances itself from earlier compliments paid Felner Aug 31
Ramsey Tosses the Faculty a Bone Aug 30
C-J smacks Ramsey, Willihnganz and Porter Aug 29
Felner’s follies - Former U of L dean Robert Felner racked up grievances, not grants Aug 29
UW-Parkside: WHEW! He's not our problem! Aug 27
Felner Update: U of L funds used to keep Rhode Island center afloat Aug 21
A trail of outrage
Feds: More 'threads' probed Aug 13
U of L's Felner tried to get more funding, investigation reveals Aug 10
Lack of Oversight of Felner Conflicts Compromises Research Integrity at U of L Aug 9
U of L grant checks end up in local bank Aug 7
Charge it! he said ($31,000 worth) Aug 4
Emails detail fraud, collusion, fear of IRS and much, much more! July 28
Felner and Schroeder's Sweetheart Deal July 28
Felner Attny hints at Schroeder involvement July 27
Felner: Anatomy of a Fraud? July 26
31 Felner Grievances not typical...so only 4 count? July 22
A Letter from Ramsey and Willihnganz July 21
Felner Pal got Bulk of Money July 20
UofL president raps 'anonymous crap' July 17
33 Grievances = Excellence at U of L July 17
FOI brings stack of grievances July 14
That $694,000 grant was for us? July 10
Grant money went to fake company? VIDEO July 10
Grant monitoring ignored -- VIDEO July 9
The Grievance King July 7
Feds widen probe July 7
He was crime victim, too July 2
UW System finger-pointing July 1
Retaliated against critics July 1
Troubles began in '80s at C-U June 30
Try this, Unified and UW-P! June 27
THE NEVERENDING STORY June 26
Withdraws before taking office June 24
Hat tip to Page One.
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Felner Stink Sticks to Deasy
Deasy's $375,000 Ends Up in On this week's Comment on Kentucky, WHAS reporter Adam Walser recaped the story of Robert Felner and his wide-ranging toxic effect on the University of Rhode Island, UofL, several of the country's school districts and many tainted individuals.
But who were the victims, and who were the co-conspirators?
One of the affected school districts was the Santa Monica-Malibu (CA)public schools during the time that John Deasy was the superintendent. Deasy recently resigned his position as Superintendent in Prince Georges County (MD) schools to join the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation - which hired him with some knowledge of the controversy.
Walser told host Ferrell Wellman,
...what we found in this federal indictment was that the entire $375,000 that came from the Santa Monica-Malibu public school system (John Deasy had given that contract to Robert Felner) the entire amount went to this shell corporation and went into Robert Felner's bank account ultimately.Deasy, you will recall, was the Felner colleague (from URI) who - after awarding Felner the $375,000 grant - was gifted a suspiciously quick doctorate under the guidance of Felner. Deasy's dissertation is dated seven
months before he even enrolled at UofL. Felner supervised no other doctoral students during his five years at the university.This sweetheart deal appeared to have the full support of UofL President James Ramsey since he recommended that the Board of Trustees approve John Deasy as an Alumni Fellow Award winner in 2007.
The Fall 2007 issue of UofL Magazine says, “The Alumni Fellows are awarded to graduates who are exemplary ambassadors for their UofL schools or colleges through their contributions to their professional fields and their communities.” On his application for the award, Deasy did not list any contributions.
Bloggers and other media questioned how Deasy was able to receive a doctorate of philosophy in education in 2004 after taking only nine credits at the school.
Deasy immediately claimed that,
If the university finds that it did not follow its own policies and procedures when conferring my doctorate, that is of course its right to make any decision thereafter.That must have seemed like a great deal if it meant Deasy would not be pulled into the rest of the allegations surrounding Felner, and another URI colleague and indicted co-conspirator, Thomas Schroeder.
The university quickly declared the doctorate to be proper.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Schroeder pleads not guilty, released on bond
This from The Courier-Journal:Thomas Schroeder, the Illinois man indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury on charges of conspiring with former University of Louisville dean Robert Felner to commit money laundering, mail fraud and conspiracy to defraud the IRS, was arraigned this morning in federal court.
Schroeder, 58, of Fort Byron, Ill., turned himself into federal authorities at about 9 this morning. David Mejia, Schroeder’s Louisville attorney, entered a not guilty plea on behalf of his client during the arraignment. Following the hearing, Mejia said Schroeder and his legal team “look forward to the day when his case will be presented to the jury.”
In addition to Mejia, Schroeder is represented by Illinois attorney Herbert Schultz, who in the past has said Schroeder denies any wrongdoing.
Judge Dave Whalin released Schroeder on a $100,000 unsecured bond — the same amount set for Felner at his arraignment yesterday. The federal indictment alleges Schroeder and Felner fraudulently obtained nearly $2.3 million in grant and contract money from University of Louisville and University of Rhode Island.
A Dec. 22 trial date has been set for both men.
Schroeder Surrenders in Louisville
This from C-J:
An Illinois man indicted Wednesday by a federal grand jury in Louisville on charges of conspiracy to commit money laundering, mail fraud and conspiracy to defraud the IRS turned himself into federal authorities this morning.
At about 9 a.m., Thomas Schroeder of Fort Byron, Ill., walked down Sixth Street and into the Mazzoli federal building. He was accompanied by two other people. He is tentatively due to be arraigned in federal court at 11 a.m...