The inspector general of the Florida Board of Governors
(BOG) has asked FAMU for answers about the hiring process that led to the
employment of Santoras “Dee” Gamble.
Gamble pleaded guilty to the felony charge of Conspiracy to
Defraud the United States in 2010 and received three years of probation. He was
also required to pay a restitution amount of more than $122,000.
The BOG inspector general asked the university in a
September 9 email: “Has there been any review of this matter to confirm that
FAMU followed the background and hiring process in hiring Gamble? If so, what
was the result?”
An October 29 article in the Tallahassee Democrat reported
that “Miller said the university was aware of [Gamble’s] conviction, but that
was not a factor in the position for which he was hired.” Miller also told the
newspaper that: “We did follow all of the federal statutes and FAMU protocol
for hiring.”
The BOG hasn't announced a timeline for when it will respond to the information it receives from FAMU about this issue.
The BOG hasn't announced a timeline for when it will respond to the information it receives from FAMU about this issue.
Corey L. Alston, former chairman of the FAMU Foundation,
Inc.
A former member of the FAMU Board of Trustees and Board of
Directors for the FAMU Foundation, Inc. had another run-in with the law in
September. Corey L. Alston was booked by the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office
for a probation violation charge on September 28 and released about 24 days later.
Alston was sentenced to serve five years on probation (with
the first six months on house arrest) and to complete 100 hours of community
service last year after he pleaded guilty to a felony grand theft charge and
one misdemeanor count of corrupt misuse of an official position. He was also
ordered to pay $48,000 in restitution. Alston won’t have a felony conviction on
his record because the judge withheld adjudication.
The charges were connected to his tenure as city manager of
South Bay, Fla.
Alston was the chairman of the FAMU Foundation, Inc. when he
was arrested and charged with the initial grant theft charge Palm Beach
County back in 2013. He stepped down from that position at FAMU later that
year, but his name remained on the list of board members for months afterward.
A 2013 editorial in the Palm Beach Post stated that: “South
Bay’s former city manager had the makings of the worst kind of thief.”
Karl White, member of the FAMU Board of Trustees
Back in 2013, the Boston Globe reported that the Federal
Bureau of Investigation had questioned Karl E. White as part of a probe into
what’s been described as a possible Ponzi scheme. He recommended an investment
fund to his former employer, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority
(MBTA), that went belly up. The MBTA has now lost the entire $25M that it gave
White to invest.
According to the Globe: “White said he does not know what
happened to the MBTA’s money after he left [Fletcher Asset Management] in
November 2008. But even before that, White said, he never checked to see how
the investments were doing. Though he held the title of investment chief, White
said he was not in charge of managing the money.”
No charges or lawsuits have been announced against
White.
Globe columnist Steven Syre responded to White’s account by
saying that “White sounds like an unsuccessful salesman with a phony title.”
The Globe reported on March 31, 2014 that the MBTA
Retirement Fund is now one of the plaintiffs in a $50 million lawsuit against Alphonse
“Buddy” Fletcher Jr., who is White’s former boss. The article said that “the lawsuit,
filed Monday in New York, accuses Fletcher and his firm, Fletcher Asset
Management, and other parties of conducting a ‘long-running fraud’ in which
they misused money for their own benefit, inappropriately took inflated
management fees, and overstated the value of assets.”