Lexington lawyer Shirley Cunningham, the lone person caught up in FAMU's payroll audit, did no work to justify a $100,000-a-year "distinguished chair of law" that Florida A&M University gave him in exchange for a $1 million gift, a Florida state agency has found.Cunningham made the gift with fees from Kentucky's $200 million settlement of claims arising from the diet drug fen-phen.
The Florida Department of Financial Services concluded in a Jan. 30 report that evidence of criminal activity by Cunningham in the so-called "ghost professor" case was inconclusive.
But the department recommended that the university try to recover $193,243 it paid him for salary and benefits "not earned."
Castell Bryant has never released the results of the payroll audit, nor have any other individuals caught up in it been prosecuted by the university or the state.
Continue reading: Ky. lawyer's pay not earned
No charges filed in pay audit
Fired law dean to get hearing
Let's see:
ReplyDeleteDepartment of Financial Services - concluded in a Jan. 30 report that evidence of criminal activity by Cunningham in the so-called "ghost professor" case was inconclusive.
US attorney's office - closed a criminal investigation of the allegations without filing charges
Office of Fiscal Integrity - no criminal charges were filed in part because the law school's then-dean signed off on the payments
State Grand Jury - Nina Barrister, a spokeswoman for the state financial department, said the case was presented to a state grand jury and no charges were returned.
Liz McBride has probably spent close to a cool million dollars in legal fees representing FAMU on this. Can we afford to spend another million dollars without any agency or court finding Cunningham quilty. On what grounds are we seeking repayment especially since the paperwork/contract did not require Cunningham to show up as a 9-5er?
There could be no criminal charges because ALL the actors in this disaster, most still at FAMU IN SOME CAPACITY, were not called to account for the activities. Whenever you pick and choose who you will prosecute instead of hall all the crooks in, this is what you end up with. The money spent on ths farce is money in dire need hire critically needed faculty and support staff at the law school which need to get in shape to keep ABA accreditation (oh, and there still no dean at the law school).
ReplyDeleteWe need our money back! what is this I hear about cassy and her connection to the "L word"
ReplyDeleteAmen Anon @ 12:21 "ALL the actors in this disaster, most still at FAMU IN SOME CAPACITY, were not called to account for the activities". We could begin with St. Fred and the soon to be 10th prez of FAMU - Ammons. Didn't Ammons exclusively select the former dean who carried out this mess?
ReplyDeleteIt will be interesting to see what the prez and the board does with the state's recommendations. And by the way Anon @ 11:12 AM according to the newspaper article that you quote "no criminal charges were filed in part because the law school's then-dean signed off on the payments"-that person was Percy Luney who was hand selected by Humphries and Ammons. Wonder how many people from the romanticized past administration will be implicated???? A million dollars has not been spent. Former dean Luney attempted to fight with disgrace instead of resign in dignity. FAMU needs fiscal integrity and Ammons said that he would do this in his first 100 days. Let's see if he puts his money where his mouth is. The law school is floundering. We can't go back to the ABA with the race card as an excuse.
ReplyDeleteAnon @ 11:12 AM "US attorney's office - closed a criminal investigation of the allegations without filing charges" Ever heard of cross agency referrals. Just because the US Attorneys office didn't take the case doesn't mean that some other federal agency won't- like the IRS. Don't look like this is ova yet.
ReplyDelete^^^^^
ReplyDeletebut he paid his taxes on the money so there would be no need for the IRS to come after him.
And how do you know that Anon @ 2:54 PM? Are you his accountant? How do you know that he reported these payments as income? Besides, that CVB payroll audit must have uncovered a lot of unpaid employment taxes. Ever hear of the 100% penalty for responsible persons who should make sure that payroll taxes are paid? Wasn't that a lingering problem a few years back in the Humphries era when Prez #10 was the provost and ruled the hill?
ReplyDeleteAnd how do you know that Anon @ 2:54 PM? Are you his accountant? How do you know that he reported these payments as income? Besides, that CVB payroll audit must have uncovered a lot of unpaid employment taxes. Ever hear of the 100% penalty for responsible persons who should make sure that payroll taxes are paid? Wasn't that a lingering problem a few years back in the Humphries era when Prez #10 was the provost and ruled the hill?
ReplyDeleteAre you kidding? The ABA MUST give us accredidation or else they will have to explain why they are racist. This school is to push the number of black attorneys up. If they don't give us our due, it is because they are using other things as an excuse to disenfrancise us. There is no way the ABA will not give us our due, or else!
ReplyDeleteIt's incredible that people are still trying to blame this on Humphries. This Cunningham law school deal was made during James Corbin's reign over FAMU.
ReplyDeleteFred Gainous, Percy Luney, and Shirley Cunningham met with Bill Jennings in Orlando to work out the arrangement. Once Corbin gave his blessings, it became final.
Yet, Humphries-haters want to blame him and Ammons because they hired Luney. Humphries and Ammons never asked Luney to do anything illegal. Corbin, Jennings, and Gainous were the ones who asked Luney to sign off on Cunningham's payments.
And who was Cunningham's personal mentor during his formative years as a student at TSU, pray tell? St. Freddie! And St. Freddie & Prez #10 hired Luney. And Luney paid St. Freddie's protege Cunningham six figures for no work. Look at the tangled web. Ammons fiscal integrity begins with himself and his beloved mentor. Cassie ain't got nothin' to do wit dis mess.
ReplyDeleteIt was well known in the legal community that former dean Luney often left his places of employment under a cloud. He left North Carolina Central's law school in a mess. Ammons knew that before he hand picked him to mess up FAMU. You can't deny all of these boys were playin' hustler together - Cunningham, Humph, Luney, and Ammons.
ReplyDeleteHumph & Ammons never asked Luney to do anything illegal. But Humph made damn sure that all of his peeps got the lucrative law school contracts. Luney gave mega bucks to his white friends in order to climb the social ladder in O-town. Well Ammons got his foot in the door at NCCU after hiring Luney. Isn't that why CVB is under fire? She cleaned up the skimming scams. You know the ones where FAMU administrators create a company and get contracts from the university for phony "ghost" services like the ones Cunningham was supposed to perform. Humph should just take his golden parachute, sit in the corner, & collect his check like the rest of Fl's retired university prezs. When the truth comes to light we will see that we have all been bamboozeled by a dry drunk. Many former alumni sent money to FAMU only to find it sitting in a general fund and never getting to the programs they wanted.
ReplyDeleteCastell cleaned up skimming scams?
ReplyDeleteLOL. If she did she created her own. Take one look at the condition of the campus. Those grounds keeping/janitorial contracts to Corbin's friends are nothing but a scam.
'L', that was the payoff for the deeds they carried out at the behest of Jughead Bush.
ReplyDeleteIt's a shame that kneegrows will sell their own out for crumbs.
UCF will take over the law school at the beginning of the 2009 academic year. The senior faculty at the school spend all of their time trying to fire people and don't spend any doing any traditional legal scholarship. Check it out. Not one member of the founding faculty has published a traditional law review article since the school opened. Plus, we can't get a dean because our rep is so bad. Finally, Rob Abrams has friends all over the country and they know how he has been treated here. UCF School of Law!
ReplyDeleteThis is yet another Battle that WE have, nothing new. Don't try to bring our morale down, truth or not in the rumors or plans. I don't trust many in the decision-making posts for OUR UNIVERISTY. The trustees must be overhauled IMMEDIATELY or we will really continue to see problems. Legitimacy and credibility are of two diffrent perspectives. We need to insure that the two are permanently intertwined. Now is the time to put all the cards on the table and put together an intelligently aggressive plan of actin and strategies to be utilized appropriately. This is really about REPARATIONS and the CONSISTENCY of Our FORTITUDE. We must be united and resolute in our progress to come within Our University. We must also be networked accross the spectrum in order to use all resoucres where they are most critically and best useful. This is definitely going to be a strategic compostition of gifted vision, which will work masterfully when WE RATTLERS get to working on it. Our 10th Pesident has a curriculum vitae which will definietly be useful to the responibilitites before him. It's time for a Grand Rattler Convention to educate and motivate the troops on the issues and how each can begin own a part of the responsibility to help secure and set new goals. This is not a call to start a campaign, but to call for personal responsibility and accountability. Time to use the gifts and spread love. Wacth the Rattler Spirit swell. BTW, the football season opener should always be the first week of school and not the fifth. I'm gettin' off this box o' mine now. (Didn't realize that I got on it til now)
ReplyDeleteAnyone who thinks the ABA will give FAMU accreditation just to avoid being labeled racist is dreaming. This law school was returned to FAMU with legislative authority and government funds to ensure that the rebuilding would be completed. The average law school has to raise most funds from private sources. FIU was established at the same time. While the folks at the FAMU law school was fighting about non-issues FIU was quickly moving ahead with their eyes on accreditation. They got it. The ABA has been one of the most progressive organizations in the area of advancing educational opportunities for African-Americans. They've actually been accused in recent years of giving too much "preference" to minorities by the leading law schools who actively fight affirmative action. I am a firm supporter of the Law School. I believe there is a critical need for it. It is painful to watch alleged professionals systematically do things that is not in the best interest of the law school. This spring the law school will graduate its 3rd class and will have several bar exam and MPRE results on the record. The law school will not get preferential treatment. If results are not evident we will all have to live with the consequences. Maybe at that point someone will actually ask why a member of the Board of Trustees would be sitting in on a meeting with Cunningham. Just saying that Luney signed-off does not excuse anyone else. Anyone who has been on the law school campus knows that almost nothing gets done in Orlando if Tallahassee does not sign-off.That is particularly true of any transaction involving money, from the ordering of supplies to the authorization to travel to paying for hooding ceremonies, etc. THE DAYS FOR EXCUSES ARE OVER. WE, AS ALUMNI, MUST DEMAND COMPLIANCE BY THOSE ENTRUSTED WITH FAMU OR SHUT UP.
ReplyDeleteCVB has been the worst at creating skimming scams and cronism. The huge Hollins Groups contracts are nothing but a payoff for Challis Lowe. The Hollins Group got her a new job at Dollar General after she was fired from Ryder.
ReplyDeleteHow does CVB justify giving KPMG millions after the surplus claims were completely discredited? How does CVB justify giving KPMG millions after the state auditors revealed that KPMG failed to report FAMU's $10M deficit?
It's all a payoff.
The KPMG contracts are also a payoff for Lowe. KPMG used to audit the books for Ryder when Lowe was a VP there and she promised them multi-million dollar FAMU contracts in order to stay in their good graces.
KPMG and the Hollins Group are both incompetent pretenders who are doing nothing more than trying to get over on FAMU. Lowe and Bryant are giving away millions in payoffs that could be used to advance FAMU's mission.
Isn't that why CVB is under fire?
ReplyDeleteCVB is under fire for racking up a $10M deficit and causing decreases in enrollment, research grants, and fundraising. She's also under fire for permitting SBI and the law school to slide into probationary status with the respective accreditation agencies.
CVB is a cancer who's finally on her way out.
NCCU bar pass rate 86%; Our's truly? Need I say more.
ReplyDelete2/10/2007 4:22 PM has it right. Those are the folks involved. Cunningham's paper trail says it all. "I don't work for myself on a punch clock and I damn sho ain't going to work for anyone else."
We are so stupid. Castell had it in for Cunningham because of the Flu Vaccine Center.
Castell sent Cunningham a personal letter inviting him to serve on the Flu Vaccine committee to provide a recommendation.
When the committee wouldn't spin it the way she wanted, she knew damn well not to fcuk with Glaxo, Eli Lilly, and BCBS so she choose Cunningham. Do you remember Jeb's Scripp package and the billions of taxpayers dollars he committed to bringing Scripps here?
Well ole boy did not want a Vaccine Research project in this part of FL. He wanted it in south FL under the watchful eye of Scripps.
B/C of stupid sith like this we have lost all of our corporate sponsors. Thanks to the Sith Lords who sold us out to the Jebster.
This story just gets uglier and uglier. There are way too many personal issues driving administrative actions in the Bryant regime. It's time to clear house.
ReplyDelete2/10/07 5:12 pm said, "Those grounds keeping/janitorial contracts to Corbin's friends are nothing but a scam."
ReplyDeleteAha! So RN knows about those contracts, too. Time to rid FAMU of the Corbin cancer for good!
4:16--the ABA doesn't HAVE to do a damn thing.
ReplyDelete"Real" questions were not asked of James Ammons during his interview for the presidency. Someone--anyone--probably the interiewing board members, should have asked him explicity about his role in the hiring of Luney and Cunningham. The questions that were asked of him were simply "surface" questions, designed, not to gain any appropriate insight, but to foster some sort of articulation between him and the board members duoing the actual questioning. Of course, there's enough blame to go around: From Humphries to Ammons to Gainous to Corbin. All these folk had a hand in the mess that's now derailing the law school. James Ammons needs to come clean with the the univerity family. If not, he's just as guilty as those who are not sitting in his seat-to-be. We can't put this mess on the ABA, if they don't accredit the law school. We love to blame other folk. No one wants to ask Ammons the hard questions regarding his part in this debacle.
ReplyDeleteAnd, you are living in La! La! Land, perhaps trying to cover-up Castell's awful mess at the Law School. You know very well that Ammons nor Humphries had any hand in this Law School mess. Please go and look in the mirror and take off that clown paint.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said..."Real" questions were not asked of James Ammons during his interview for the presidency. Someone--anyone--probably the interiewing board members, should have asked him explicity about his role in the hiring of Luney and Cunningham. The questions that were asked of him were simply "surface" questions, designed, not to gain any appropriate insight, but to foster some sort of articulation between him and the board members duoing the actual questioning. Of course, there's enough blame to go around: From Humphries to Ammons to Gainous to Corbin. All these folk had a hand in the mess that's now derailing the law school. James Ammons needs to come clean with the the univerity family. If not, he's just as guilty as those who are not sitting in his seat-to-be. We can't put this mess on the ABA, if they don't accredit the law school. We love to blame other folk. No one wants to ask Ammons the hard questions regarding his part in this debacle. 2/11/2007 5:48 PM
ReplyDelete***********************************
I swear either Castell is posting or some idiot in her administration is. Where do these folks get these cockmanny ideas?
These are no cockamammy posts. People simply don't like their so-called favorite people to be tampered with. Ammons isn't far removed from this law school mess, and anyone who has been at the university longer than yesterday, but as far back as in the midst of the humphries years do recognize that many people have had their hands sullied by this law school madness. cockamammy? No. I don't think so. Some folks don't like to call things as they are. A lot of people want to look at a new and improved administration, and of course, so do I, but frankly we must call things as they are.
ReplyDeleteAmmons had nothing to do with cutting the Shirley Cunningham law chair deal. He was not even present at the meeting between Gainous, Jennings, Cunningham, and Luney that resulted in the agreement.
ReplyDeleteCastell's supporters will probably also blame Ammons with making the imaginary $8M surplus disappear.
The law school will get fully accredited by the ABA. We have too many talented faculty.
ReplyDeleteSix years and 4 Presidents later, some are blaming the Chancellor of a North Carolina University for problems at the FAMU Law School--- WOW! Is that in denial or what?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDeleteThe law school will get fully accredited by the ABA. We have too many talented faculty.
2/12/2007 6:42 AM
Yeah they have a talent for stabbing each other in the back and blaming everyone else for their problems. Never see such an inmature group of adults.
ALL Y'ALL SUCK
ReplyDeleteFirst and foremost
ReplyDeletestop browsing this blog while in class. Pay attention. That's why the bar pass rate is so low. You want to be like those other grads who have to take the MPRE and bar exam 2 and 3 times before they pass?
Faculty here are talented. Stop hating and start participating. Stop sitting in the professors office and listening to the gossip. Pick up a book and read. It's very simple, 1, 2, 3. Go to class. Pay attention. Read, study. Voila, you're a lawyer in three years. You pass the bar on the first try. The school gets better. Or you can waste your time on this blog, or on your MYSPACE or Facebook page and bam...three years later you're hoping no one notices that your on your fourth try to pass the bar exam. It hurts when you look on that website and see "fail" next to your name. Your faculty here are working hard to teach you. Do your part.
Anonymous said...
ReplyDeleteThe law school will get fully accredited by the ABA. We have too many talented faculty.
2/12/2007 6:42 AM
HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
Talented at what, getting paid big $$$ and working 10 hours a week? It's the best scam ever! If they are so talented, why are none of the senior faculty publishing anything? Their only talent is gossip. Can we finally find a new DEAN??? I'm tired of it. I have been a student with only an interim dean, never a permenant one!!!!
Looks like you need to work on grammar, sentence structure, and spelling before you worry about a new dean. It's spelled permanent.
ReplyDeleteAlso, senior faculty are too busy to publish. They are trying to mentor all the junior faculty, who want to do nothing but fight, build the institution, and keep the ship afloat.