Pedro Paulo dos Santos, the former director of Georgetown’s Brazilian Studies program, was indicted on July 19 by a federal grand jury for embezzling more than $300,000 from Georgetown University according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Dos Santos falsified checks to a fictional lecturer before fleeing the county, and faces a total of 30 years in prison and a $1,000,000 fine if he is convicted of the 10 counts dealing with bank fraud, mail fraud, money laundering, and theft with which he is charged. However, he must be extradited to the U.S. in order to be tried, and because Brazil’s constitution prohibits the extradition of nationals except in narcotics cases, it is unlikely that he will be brought to trial.
Dos Santos would face charges in the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia. He fled the to Brazil in March 2005, according to Channing Philips, Director of Public Affairs of the Department of Justice. Due the ongoing nature of the case, Phillips declined to comment on its details.
From September 2001 to February 2005, dos Santos wrote several checks to the fictional Nelson Katri Arias, who supposedly provided guest lecturing services, by forging expense vouchers and fake invoices, according to the Department of Justice. The Georgetown accounts payable department processed these checks, and Dos Santos would receive the checks directly from the department.
University auditors could not be reached for comment on this issue. Georgetown spokesperson Julie Green Bataille wrote in an e-mail message that “Georgetown’s internal practices enabled officials to detect the fraud that took place in the dos Santos case.” She also commented that the university has applied more safeguards to reduce fraud.
Additional reporting by
Michael J. Bruns.
