Features

Cal State Hayward says accountant, now dismissed, embezzled $150,000

The Associated Press
Sunday October 28, 2001

HAYWARD — Exploiting a lack of checks and balances, an accountant in the Cal State-Hayward fundraising department embezzled more than $150,000 over five years, regaling himself with gifts including a personal computer and home improvements, according to a university audit. 

The employee was fired over the summer, but not before he used a series of accounting tricks to take the money beginning in July 1996, the report by the Cal State system auditor said. 

The audit, which ran from May through late September, did not use the employee’s name. It said campus police were investigating the employee, but neither spokesmen from the campus nor the system’s headquarters returned calls abut the status of that probe. 

The employee worked for Cal State-Hayward’s Educational Foundation, an organization affiliated with the campus that solicits donations from alumni and grant makers. He was the primary accountant for the foundation’s vice president. 

According to the audit, which was dated Monday, the man forged documents to buy $5,200 in personal computing equipment and made more than 40 fraudulent disbursements to get cash and pay contractors remodeling his house and credit card bills. 

The report suggested the fundraising office implement a series of tighter accounting procedures.