Mohammad Usman, the former member of the Class of 2010 who pled guilty last week to fraudulently collecting $18,645 in College grants and federal work study funding, previously pled guilty to a violation resulting from a separate incident in 2007. Federal investigators and law investment officials have declined to provide details of the case until Usman is sentenced in July.
The College contacted the Hanover Police department about Usman on Aug. 25, 2008, after administrators "amassed information that suggested they had a substantial problem," Hanover Police Captain Francis Moran said in an interview with The Dartmouth.
Usman left the College following his Summer term in 2008, according to College spokesman Roland Adams, who declined to comment on whether Usman left voluntarily.
Because the fraud included federal work-study funds, the College and Hanover Police collaborated with the federal Department of Education's Office of the Inspector General, and later with the U.S. Attorney's Office, to investigate the case, according to Moran.
A spokesperson for the Department of Education said the department could not comment on the case until Usman is sentenced. Assistant U.S. Attorney Alfred Rubega, the prosecutor in Usman's case, is out of the office until April 10, and was unavailable for comment by press time.
"The issues we investigated involved [Usman] doing things that were not legitimate within programs that he was legitimately participating in, like internship funding and work study jobs," Moran said. "He manipulated the system and manipulated people to get what he wanted."
Moran said he could not be more specific because Usman's sentencing is still pending.
Current Dean of the Tucker Foundation Richard Crocker and former Tucker Dean Stuart Lord declined to comment on Usman's case, other than to say that Usman's behavior was not representative of other students' actions.
"We have learned how to tighten up our systems, but we also have to be careful when we work with students that we continue to demonstrate the level of trust that almost all other participants have deserved," Lord said.
Usman allegedly falsified the time sheets that student employees submit twice each month, according to a member of the Class of 2011 who works for Tucker and asked to remain anonymous because of possible repercussions at his job.
"Tucker has definitely been more careful about time sheets this year," the student said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "In [the student employee's job], they've made us check in with our supervisor much more directly."
Although Usman's attorney, George Ostler '77, declined to comment on the specifics of the case or on Usman's motivations, he said College officials, procedures and oversight were not at fault.
"[Usman] admits that he made some serious mistakes, and he's taken responsibility for those," Ostler said. "We don't think anyone at the College is responsible for this."
Usman's fraudulent activity occurred between winter 2007 and fall 2008, according to documents submitted by Rubega. During that time, Usman received a Tucker Foundation Fall 2007 Internship Award for $4000, a Tucker Foundation Winter 2007 Internship Award for $4000, leave term work study for $3870, a Career Services 2008 Spring Term Robinson Grant and a Tucker Foundation Summer Student Employment Grant for $4245.
The Hanover-based non-profit Vital Communities lists Usman as a fall 2007 intern on its web site. The Tucker Foundation's web site, however, says that Usman received a grant funding for an internship at Right Turn, a Boston-based non-profit organization that supports recovering drug addicts, during that same term.
This is not the first time that Usman has pled guilty to a crime. Usman was fined $500 in 2007 for deliberately misrepresenting items that he had sold on the web site eBay.
In that case, Usman claimed he was selling a computer motherboard, but mailed the buyer an empty box, according to an affidavit supplied by the Lebanon District Court.
Detective Eric Bates of the Lebanon Police Department, who interviewed Usman and later issued an arrest warrant, described Usman's actions in that incident as "theft by deception," a class A misdemeanor, in his initial report.
Usman, however, ultimately pled guilty to a violation, the smallest possible criminal charge, according to court documents from the case.
A criminal conviction does not necessarily result in College judicial action, Director of Judicial Affairs April Thompson said in an interview with The Dartmouth this week.
"If a student commits a crime outside the College, we work with them to determine whether it affects their ability to be a student and whether it affects the community before we decide what action to take," Thompson said.
The College often delays its internal investigation until after ongoing legal proceedings have concluded, Thompson said in the interview.
While Thompson declined to comment on Usman's case specifically, citing privacy laws, she explained that the past precedent for disciplinary action associated with stealing is at least a one term suspension.
Four students who stole laptop computers between summer 2004 and spring 2008 were suspended for between one and four terms, depending on each student's past record and why the computer was stolen, she said in an e-mail to The Dartmouth.
Thompson declined to comment on Usman's case specifically, citing privacy laws.
