A former Emory University employee who authorities say embezzled more than $300,000 in tuition and fees paid by students and spent it on herself has pleaded guilty to wire fraud, acting U.S. Attorney John Horn said.
Brenda Michael, an administrative assistant who coordinated admissions at the Emory School of Nursing, enrolled students for certain classes and programs and told students how to pay for them, according to court filings. From 2012 to 2014, she told students to send their payments to a PayPal account that was her own personal account, authorities said.
“Michael brazenly abused her position with Emory University by misdirecting student payments to a personal account for more than a year,” Horn said. “Those funds were owed to the school, paid by students working on their college education.”
All told, she took $317,000, he said.
About 185 students were affected and then notified in April 2014 of the fraud, an Emory University spokesperson said in a statement, according to Channel 2 Action News.
Michael’s lawyer, Parag Shah, told Channel 2 Action News that, “Based on the circumstances at her life at the time, she made some poor choices, she accepted responsibility for her actions and she wants to apologize to Emory and the people she may have hurt.”
Michael, 53, of Atlanta, is scheduled to be sentenced on July 8.
About the Author
