Gov. Robert Bentley, R-Tuscaloosa, in February tasked Forensic Strategic Solutions (FSS) with investigating potential fraud at Alabama State University. Earlier this week, Bentley released the findings of the audit, which indicate that “multiple acts of fraud, waste and abuse are occurring and/or have occurred at ASU.”
ASU Board of Trustees Chairman Elton Dean, Vice Chairman Judge Marvin Wiggins, and former member Dr. Lawrence Lemak were all named in the assessment.
ASU President William Harris shot back, saying that the portions of the assessment he read are “false and misleading.”
“Our university is under attack by a governor who wishes to control the destiny of this historic place,” Harris said. “The governor uses as his justification a flawed document that he released without keeping his promise to ASU that we would have the opportunity to review and respond to him before it was issued, so as to point out clear and glaring inaccuracies.”
Here are 5 things we learned about the investigation’s findings, using quotes pulled directly from the 36-page report:
1. Folks don’t like being investigated
FSS has concluded that ASU has failed to produce critical documents. FSS has no confidence that the documents produced by ASU are complete and reliable. Instead, FSS has had to rely on third party information, publicly available information, research, identification of relationships, and other indirect methods of investigation to perform it’s assessment.
2. It pays to be a family member
ASU trustee Judge Marvin Wiggins had many relatives involved with “Camp Eagle,” a two week summer program for youth hosted by ASU. Namely Wiggins’ wife, Zina Wiggins was the director of Camp Eagle for several years. Also allegedly involved were Wiggins’ brother-in-law, Kenneth Williams; Wiggins’ mother-in-law, Florence Catledge; Wiggins’ sister-in-law, Michelle Crawford; and Devo’n Williams (whose exact relationship to Wiggins is unknown but he shares the same home address with Kenneth Williams, Florence Catledge, and Michelle Crawford). All these individuals were paid by ASU under the Camp Eagle project, but were not all identified by ASU as being paid under the Camp Eagle project in all instances.
3. Administrative costs can be costly
Dr. Lawrence Lemak reportedly served as ASU team physician. FSS found no payments from ASU directly to Lemak for his services. FSS determined that Lemak’s non-profit foundation, The National Center for Sports Safety had a cooperation agreement with ASU for the period October 2007 through September 2012. ASU provided funding to NCSS through appropriations from the State of Alabama for the PREPARE program. ASU received 20% of the allocations to NCSS as an ‘administration costs,’ despite the fact that ASU has produced no documentation or information demonstrating that ASU performed any administrative functions of NCSS.
4. Everyone loves those inflatable games
ASU Trustee Elton Dean had relatives involved in a business that violates the conflict of interest policy for ASU as codified in the Alabama Code of 1975. Dean has a daughter, Dawnese Bowen and son-in-law, Allen Bowen, who are the only two members of The Space Walker, LLC. Space Walker rents out large inflatables, such as slides and moonwalks, for parties and events. Space Walker received multiple payments from ASU yet Dean failed to disclose either Dawnese Bowen or Allen Bowen on his Conflict of Interest form and on his Statement of Economic Interest form.
Warranting further investigation is Dean’s relationship to one Falicia Rhodes and payments to Rhodes from the CLPP totalling $78,000.00.
5. There’s a lot more investigating to be done
ASU spent over $200 million on construction work at the university from approximately 2007-2013. FSS was preparing to investigate these expenditures and was scheduled to interview Dr. Freddie Gallot, ASU’s Vice President of Business and Finance, on September 5, 2013 regarding the construction contracts and payments. However, the interview with Gallot was cancelled by WAD (law firm White, Arnold, & Dowd, P.C.) because Gallot’s personal attorney was unable to attend.
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