Two UNH Employees Charged with Theft of Nearly $90K in Government Grant Money - Granite Grok

Two UNH Employees Charged with Theft of Nearly $90K in Government Grant Money

UNH CampusA UNH Research Project Manager and a UNH Research Assistant Professor have been charged by the US District Attorney’s Office for New Hampshire with theft of federal grant money. Both used a business credit card associated with their Grants for personal use.

Both defendants were arrested on Friday and are scheduled to make their initial appearances in federal court on Friday afternoon.

The first,

“…Indictment alleges that on 31 separate occasions from approximately December 2013 to January 2018, (Hailong Zhang, 44, of Nottingham) used his business credit card to purchase gift cards from Amazon.com that totaled more than $82,000, which Zhang used to purchase items for his personal use.  The Indictment also alleges that Zhang concealed his unauthorized use of the credit card by submitting a fictitious receipt and a fraudulent written justification for each expense to the College of Life Sciences and Agriculture’s Business Service Center, which caused the University System of New Hampshire to make payments for the unauthorized purchases to Zhang’s credit card account and UNH to obtain reimbursements for the expenses from the NIH grants.”

He bought $82,000.00 worth of Amazon Gift Cards. We’ll never see that money again.

And the second,

“…Indictment alleges that Jichun Zhang, 45, of Durham, was a Research Assistant Professor for the UNH Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space.  The Indictment alleges that he was authorized to use a credit card provided by UNH for expenses covered by federal research grants that were awarded to UNH, as the prime-grantee, by the National Aeronautic and Space Administration (“NASA”).  The Indictment alleges that on 31 different occasions from approximately January 2016 to December 2017, Zhang used his business credit card to purchase personal items totaling more than $6,900 from Amazon.com, PayPal, and Apple, Inc.  This Indictment further alleges that Zhang concealed the unauthorized use of the credit card by submitting a fictitious receipt and a fraudulent written justification for each expense to the UNH Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space’s Business Service Center, which caused the University System of New Hampshire to make payments for the unauthorized purchases to Zhang’s credit card account and UNH to seek and obtain reimbursements for each expense from the NASA grants.”

Your tax dollars at work.

 

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