A former assistant dean of Seton Hall Law School was sentenced to 36 months in prison for defrauding her former employer of more than $1.3 million, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said.
Teresina DeAlmeida, 59, and her co-conspirators, Silvia Cardoso, 61 of Warren, and Rose Martins, 44, of East Hanover, previously pleaded guilty to committing wire fraud.
“The defendant abused her position of trust as an assistant dean to orchestrate an elaborate embezzlement scheme for more than a decade,” U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said. “In doing so, she and her co-conspirators stole more than $1.3 million intended to benefit the school and its students.”
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“Trust is an intangible thing, a faith that people who have access to large sums of money won’t steal it. DeAlmeida took funds meant for students at the university and did so for more than a decade,” FBI Acting Special Agent-in-Charge Nelson Delgado said.
Between 2009 and July 2022, DeAlmeida, Martins, and Cardoso fraudulently misappropriated more than $1.3 million. DeAlmeida was an assistant dean responsible for financial functions, and Martins served as her assistant. Cardoso, DeAlmeida’s sister, was also employed by the school in a support staff role, according to court documents.
The defendants defrauded the university in various ways:
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From 2009 to 2013, DeAlmeida directed a vendor to fraudulently pay Martins and Cardoso for performing no work while submitting false invoices to the school to get reimbursed for the amounts paid to her co-conspirators.
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From 2010 to 2022, DeAlmeida and Martins directed vendors to buy gift cards and pre-paid debit cards for personal use, fraudulently reimbursing themselves for non-existent goods and services. Her co-conspirators used DeAlmeida’s school-issued credit card to buy similar cards from the school’s bookstore, with Martins forging approval signatures and DeAlmeida fraudulently authorizing the charges.
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They also sued DeAlmeida’s school-issued card to make over $70,000 of personal purchases like clothes and apparel while altering the receipts they submitted to the school for reimbursement.
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In 2015, Martins created and used a shell LLC to submit over $208,000 in fraudulent invoices for fake services.
In addition to the prison term, Judge Neals sentenced DeAlmeida to 2 years of supervised release and ordered restitution of approximately $1,397,000.
U.S. Attorney Sellinger credited special agents of the Internal Revenue Services, under the direction of Special Agent in Charge Jenifer L. Piovesan in Newark; special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, under the direction of Acting Special Agent in Charge Nelson I. Delgado in Newark; and special agents of the Department of Education, under the direction of Acting Special Agent in Charge John Carlo with the investigation.
Email: alewis@njpressmedia.com
Alexander Lewis is an award-winning reporter and photojournalist whose work spans many topics.
This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Former Essex NJ County dean sentenced to 3 years in prison for fraud