Former Dean of Business School at Temple U. Gets Prison Time for Rankings Fraud Scheme
“He still doesn’t think he did anything wrong. He has never accepted any responsibility”
The former dean doesn’t seem to think he did anything wrong. He didn’t even apologize at the hearing.
The Philadelphia Inquirer reports:
Temple’s former business school dean was sentenced to 14 months in rankings scandal fraud
The former dean of Temple University’s Fox School of Business was sentenced to 14 months in federal prison Friday for orchestrating a complex fraud scheme to propel his college to the top of national rankings and defraud its students and donors based on that unearned reputation.
Moshe Porat — who led the school for more than two decades until he was fired for the misrepresentations in 2018 — did not apologize or even acknowledge the students harmed by his crimes as he addressed the judge moments before his punishment was announced. Instead, he pleaded with U.S. District Judge Gerald J. Pappert to keep him out of prison so he could care for his ailing wife.
Pappert balked, calling Porat’s obsession with driving the Fox School of Business to the No. 1 spot “maniacal” and marveled that he had spent much of Friday’s hearing smirking and muttering under his breath.
“He still doesn’t think he did anything wrong. He has never accepted any responsibility,” the judge said. “He blames everyone else.”
The news that he would soon be headed to prison finally elicited a reaction from Porat. The 75-year-old former dean sighed, pressed his steepled fingers to his forehead, and bowed his head as his wife and adult children looked on dismayed from the courtroom gallery. Pappert gave Porat until May 9 to report to prison. His lawyer, Michael A. Schwartz, vowed an immediate appeal.
But it could have been far worse. Prosecutors had sought a sentence of up to 11 years and the judge shot down a government request to force Porat to pay $5.5 million to Temple in restitution.
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College administrators must uphold the trust that the public places in them. In addition to criminal laws, there are many Dept of Education regulations that govern schools who dispense federally guaranteed student loans. These are very serious crimes that should bring serious consequences when they are broken.
I’m a little confused as to why he should pay restitution to Temple. I would think his fraud would actually have enriched Temple.
Read the Philly Inquirer article linked at the top of the story, above. Much more about this unrepentant dirt ball, Porat. The salient part about the $5.5 million in restitution, though is, quoting from the Inquirer,
“Friday’s hearing closed a chapter on a scandal that has roiled Temple since its false rankings data first came to light in 2018 and has since cost the university millions in legal settlements with state and federal investigators and former students who sued, saying their degrees had been devalued.”
There is much more detail on the con artist this guy seems to be in the article.