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How Not To Steal From Columbia University
By
Garth Johnston
Published Nov 29, 2010
Modified Nov 30, 2010
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By
Garth Johnston
Published Nov 29, 2010
Modified Nov 30, 2010
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OK budding embezzlers, we sort of thought at this point we wouldn't have to explain this to you, but here goes: If you are going to siphon cash from your place of business into a private bank account (let's say, around $4.4 million) you really don't want to do it in seven-digit chunks. You'd be much better served with the Office Space-style hundredth-of-a-penny-at-a-time method (just don't do that all at once, either—see the movie).
We wouldn't even think to mention this to you, but apparently Columbia University employee George Castro somehow missed out on this common criminal sense (and didn't notice last year when another employee was busted for embezzling much smaller sums). According to a complaint from the Manhattan DA's office, Castro recently modified a school account to include his private bank account as a payee—and paid himself $3.4 million in October and another million this month!
When the cops caught up with Castro the day before Thanksgiving he apparently had $200,000 in cash on him (for what, we want to know) and was driving a new $80,000 Audi. The Post reports he told investigators "that the money just appeared in his account and [he] got greedy."
Tagged
accusations
columbia university
embezzlement
theft
Garth Johnston
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