RA Dean's Student Servants

[Don Dresden]

It wasn't enough just to embezzle a million bucks. This RA St. John's University dean and vice president had her scholarship recipients working 20 hours a week--chauffering her son to the airport at 3 am, delivering cash to her at a casino, cooking, taking out her garbage and shoveling snow.

She must have gotten the Gold Standard confused with the Golden Arches standard, and was preparing her students for their future careers at McDonalds.

Ex-Dean Accused of Using Students as Servants

By C. J. HUGHES
Published: September 30, 2010

A former administrator at St. John's University accused of embezzling about $1 million from the college in Queens has now been charged with far more lurid crimes: forcing students to clean, cook and act as her personal servants to keep their scholarships.


Cecilia Chang had previously been charged with stealing from St. John's.

The ex-administrator, Cecilia Chang, who served as a dean and vice president at the university, was charged with forced labor and bribery, according to a complaint made public by federal prosecutors on Thursday.

As the dean of the Institute of Asian Studies at St. John's, Ms. Chang had the authority to grant 15 scholarships a year. The recipients, most of whom were from overseas, were told they had to work 20 hours a week under her supervision.

The students thought they would be doing work related to the university. Instead, according to the prosecutors, she forced them to perform menial tasks at her home in Jamaica Estates, Queens.

One of the students had to drive Ms. Chang's son to the airport at 3 a.m., the complaint says, and another had to deliver cash to her at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut.

And she made it clear that if the students did not perform their extracurricular duties, they would lose their scholarships, which were worth at least $5,000, the complaint says. The loss of the scholarships might have forced some of the students to drop out, it adds.

"In addition to the outrageous way she treated her students, in exchange for scholarships, she had them falsify documents," Charles Kleinberg, an assistant United States attorney, said at Ms. Chang's bail hearing in Federal District Court in Brooklyn.

Ms. Chang, 57, did not enter a plea or speak during the one-hour hearing, but she stood shaking her head as prosecutors argued that she was a flight risk because she holds a passport from Taiwan, which does not have an extradition treaty with the United States.

Her lawyers argued that by surrendering on Thursday morning, Ms. Chang demonstrated that she would not flee. They added that she was already wearing an electronic monitoring device as part of the bail conditions in the embezzlement case, a 205-count indictment filed by the Queens district attorney's office in September.

In that case, Ms. Chang is accused of stealing about $1 million from St. John's. Prosecutors say she used the money to pay for lingerie, casino trips and her son's tuition.

After three decades at St. John's, Ms. Chang was suspended when the embezzlement allegations came to light in January, and she was fired in June.

Magistrate Judge Joan M. Azrack set Ms. Chang's bail at $1.5 million, to be secured by two homes belonging to friends, one in Hempstead, N.Y., and another in Yonkers. If convicted, Ms. Chang faces at least 10 years in prison, prosecutors said.

After the arraignment, Ron Rubenstein, one of Ms. Chang's lawyers, said that the students' duties, which never totaled more than 20 hours a week, were a normal part of the St. John's work-study program.

Many of those tasks were to help with Taiwanese dignitaries visiting Ms. Chang's house, where she frequently entertained out-of-town guests for fund-raising purposes, Mr. Rubenstein said.

"The fact that this is even a crime is shocking," he said outside court. "Cooking a meal doesn"t sound at first blush like work-study, but wait till the trial. I'm not going to give you the defense now."

According to the complaint, one student, identified only as CI1, "drove Chang to the hair salon, to restaurants and to the airport."

"As a driver" it adds, "CI1 was also responsible for taking out the garbage and shoveling snow at Chang"s residence."

St. John's officials said that the students who worked under Ms. Chang did not have to worry about losing their scholarships.

"If these allegations by federal authorities are true," Dominic Scianna, a spokesman for St. John's, said in a statement, "Ms. Chang's treatment of some students and the environment she created are shocking and in complete violation of all this university stands for.""

A for-sale sign was posted outside Ms. Chang's house on Thursday; an Internet listing puts the price at $2.89 million, or for rent at $5,800 a month.

[ham]

The ex-administrator, Cecilia Chang ... holds a passport from Taiwan ...stealing about $1 million from St. John's. ...A for-sale sign was posted outside Ms. Chang's house on Thursday; an Internet listing puts the price at $2.89 million, or for rent at $5,800 a month.

The land of opportunities, eh? Blah!

Ron Rubenstein, one of Ms. Chang's lawyers

lose their scholarships, which were worth at least $5,000

I mean...I am supposed to shovel snow for a Taiwanese for that?!
PFFT! Try again...

[Geoff Vankirk]

Before this is done I bet that there will be allegations that she was doing the horizontal mambo with one or more of her "students". She had too much power over them, probably moreso because they were Chinese.

[Don Dresden]

Racist judge says "Sayonara" to Cecilia Chang after she kills herself.


"Sayonara" say Judge Sterling "Asshole" Johnson, Jr.

If you're gonna make stupid ethnic comments, at least get the right ethnic group, dumbass.? Or do they all look alike to you?

Definitely the correct way for disgraced academics to make an exit.? Let's hope George Gollin follows this example.

Ex-Dean of St. John's, on Trial for Stealing Over $1 Million, Is Found Dead at Home
By MOSI SECRET and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
Published: November 6, 2012

Hers was the kind of rise through the academic ranks that could have epitomized the American dream, if not for the way she crashed. Fresh from Taiwan in 1975, she enrolled at St. John's University as a student in Asian studies, becoming a dean in just five years and, soon after, winning the ear of the university's top echelon as she raised more than $20 million for the school.


Cecilia Chang

But the dean, Cecilia Chang, fought her way up driven by the same ambition and greed that would pull her down, accused of stealing more than $1 million from the school and using foreign scholarship students as her personal servants, prosecutors said during a three-week trial in Federal District Court in Brooklyn.

Hours after Dr. Chang took the stand in a desperate attempt to try to explain her actions, she was found dead in her multimillion-dollar home in Queens, one of the prizes of her swift ascent. Investigators said they believed she had committed suicide.

Dr. Chang's lawyers had tried to reach her on Tuesday, and when they could not, they called her son and suggested he call the police. He did, and officers entered the home and discovered her body.

The beginning of the end came in 2010, when Dr. Chang was arrested and charged in the case. Prosecutors said she had used her position to recruit students to the school, promising them scholarships but threatening to expel them if they did not perform her household chores, including washing her underwear by hand.

They said she had created bank accounts in the students' names, shuffling around tens of thousands of dollars that would ultimately end up in her pocket.

The government assembled a case so strong that Dr. Chang's lawyers could hardly offer a defense in opening statements. She had taken the money, her lawyer said, but it was owed to her. The students had performed her chores, but not under duress.

Prosecutors called students and university officials to the stand, and they piled mounds of incriminating evidence atop Dr. Chang. She took the stand in her own defense, against the advice of her lawyers, providing the only defense evidence offered before her death. The presiding judge in the case, Sterling Johnson Jr., declared a mistrial after her death was confirmed.

The case was a reminder that trials are often where human dramas play out writ small. A courtroom tends to be an orderly, civilized place where jurors hear testimony about things that happened in the past. But beyond the metal detectors and the security guards, life can be much more grisly.

Dr. Chang's defense lawyers released a statement on Tuesday. "Cecilia Chang dedicated 30 years of her life to St. John's University," it said. "She was a prolific fund-raiser and tireless advocate for her beloved Asian Studies Program at the University. Her death today is a sad ending to a complex human drama."

Dominic Scianna, a spokesman for the university, said: "St. John's University was saddened to learn this morning of the death of Cecilia Chang. We ask the entire St. John's community to pray for her and her family."

Separately, Judge Johnson, known for filling his sixth floor courtroom with levity, did not scale back when the news turned grim.

"Sayonara," Judge Johnson said, adding that Dr. Chang had gotten everything off her chest in the previous day's testimony. "We never know how an individual handles the pressure." He called the turn of events a "Shakespearean tragedy."

At one point, the prosecutors hugged each other and the investigators in the case.

As the drama unfolded in the courtroom, Dr. Chang's son, Steven, the subject of much courtroom testimony about the chores his mother's students had performed for him, was outside of his mother's house, prevented from entering by the police.

The court was waiting to hear from the police about whether the son had seen the body. The judge was satisfied that she had killed herself after the police said they had shown a photo of Dr. Chang to a neighbor, who said it was her.

The judge did not immediately inform the jurors of what happened, keeping them in a separate room until the death was confirmed. In private, he told them, "Dr. Chang is no longer with us," according to several jurors who were present at the conversation.

All said the news came as a surprise.

"My first thought was that she fled the country," said a juror from Nassau County who did not want to give his full name.

"We're shocked," said Joan Bophy, a juror from Staten Island. "And it's a shame. She probably punished herself more than anybody would."

Some said she did not look right and thought it strange that she had seemed to implicate herself in her testimony.

"You could see she was stressed, really stressed," Ms. Bophy said. "She was digging herself a deeper hole."

Some learned for the first time about an article in The Daily News on Monday reporting that Dr. Chang was a suspect in her husband's murder more than 20 years ago.

A person with knowledge of that case said that after they were divorced, Dr. Chang's husband was shot and lived for 10 days before dying. He told investigators before he died that he recognized the person who shot him, and said his wife must have paid the person to do it.

Detectives were unable to corroborate his statement, which alone was not sufficient to support a case, and she was thus never charged. Dr. Chang saw the report before she testified.

RA and No Way in one charming package!? Want to be a college dean but your dead husband has implicated you in his murder?? No problem at RA St. John's!? Hand wash my underwear or three slugs in the back, you choose.

EXCLUSIVE: St. John's University dean on trial for ripping off school was prime suspect in 1990 execution-style slay of husband

Celia Chang's husband wrote 'my wife did this' before he died; murder remains unsolved by NYPD

By John Marzulli / NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Published: Sunday, November 4, 2012, 7:33 PM
Updated: Monday, November 5, 2012, 3:27 AM



Cecilia Chang, former Dean of St Johns University, leaving Federal Court in Broolkyn [sic] after being relased [sic] for failure to stay sober prior to her trial.

Cecilia Chang, the disgraced St. John's University dean on trial for using her students as personal servants, was the prime suspect in the 1990 execution-style murder of her first husband, the Daily News has learned.

Chang was even fingered by the 37-year-old man in a dying declaration to detectives at the intensive care unit of Elmurst General Hospital, where he was sent after taking three slugs to his back, said sources with direct knowledge of the investigation.

Unable to speak because of the tube running down his throat, Ruey Fung Tsai -- known as "Johnson" -- motioned for a piece of paper, said one of the sources.

"He wrote that his wife was responsible: 'My wife did this,'" the source said.

The source said Tsai also wrote of his wife's business dealings with former Queens Borough President Donald Manes, who committed suicide in 1986 amid a municipal corruption scandal.

Tsai's murder remains unsolved. But a source said the FBI was notified of the cold case after Chang was indicted by the Queens district attorney and Brooklyn U.S. attorney on separate charges in 2010. The charges included embezzling more than $1 million from the university, bribing students with scholarships and forcing them to work as personal servants in her home.

Chang is pressing to testify in her own defense this week as her team begins presenting its case in Brooklyn Federal Court, either Monday or Tuesday, sources said.

Detectives from the 83rd Precinct squad did not get a chance to question Tsai more deeply before he died July 31, 1990. He was the father of the couple's young son, Steven.

Tsai had been shot 11 days earlier as he showed up for work at a factory on Suydam St. in Bushwick, Brooklyn, where he owned a business inside.

Around 9:30 a.m., two men delivering soda nearby watched as a young Asian man walked up to Tsai and opened fire, according to law enforcement sources and police records.

The gunman took nothing, fled around the corner and disappeared into the subway station at Wyckoff Ave.

"It was definitely a hit," the source with direct knowledge of the case told The News, adding that robbery was ruled out.

At the time, Chang was a rising star in St. John's University"s Asian studies department. She was questioned in the murder as the prime suspect, but claimed not to know anything, the source said. Her home in Jamaica Estates, Queens, was placed under surveillance.

But police were not able to implicate her beyond her husband"s claim.

Detectives also questioned the victim"s mistress, who mentioned that Tsai"s father was a wealthy businessman in Taiwan, the source said.

Contacted by The News yesterday, Chang clammed up. "My lawyer says I am not supposed to answer any questions,"? she said.

Defense lawyers Joel Cohen and Alan Abramson responded with terse "no comments"? to the late husband's dying declaration implicating Chang.

There has been testimony during the federal trial that Chang remarried twice and put both husbands on the university's tab, listing them as her drivers.

Her son, Steven, is a lawyer practicing in Hawaii and could not immediately be reached.

[ham]

[Don Dresden]

You really should. Unless you believe that the dean blasting holes in her husband, stealing the silverware, threatening to deport students who won't hand wash her underwear, etc., etc., are just supposed to be the hallmarks of a Gold Standard RA operation.

[Martin Eisenstadt]

You've got to give her credit for persistence.? If gas and wrist slashing don't work, go for the ladder.? Just the kind of gal you would hope to meet through an online dating service...smart, successful, resourceful, tireless, and, well, nobody's perfect, but belligerent, incoherent, corrupt, alcoholic, homicidal maniac...

Fraud case concludes as defendant hangs herself
SHAKESPEAREAN TRAGEDY: Cecilia Chang took her life a day after she admitted in court that she lied to the FBI and had used students as personal servants
By William Lowther? /? Staff reporter in WASHINGTON

The sensational US$1 million fraud case against Taiwanese-born Cecilia Chang (???) ended on Tuesday in New York after her body was found hanging from a ladder in her luxury apartment.

According to widely reported sources, Chang, 59, had committed suicide.

Police sources said that just before the hanging, Chang had tried to slash her wrists and gas herself.

"It's a Shakespearean tragedy," federal Judge Sterling Johnson said as he declared a mistrial and closed the case.

The former dean of St John's University, New York, Chang died a day after testifying in what witnesses said was a "belligerent and incoherent" fashion.

She took the stand -- against the advice of her lawyers -- to admit that she had lied to the FBI, charged personal items on her expenses and used students as servants.

Johnson said that her planned suicide could have been one of the reasons she wanted to testify.

"Sayonara. Get it off her chest. We never know how an individual handles the pressure. She admitted everything on the stand," he said.

Chang's body was found after firefighters broke down the door of her apartment when her son, Steven, 27, became worried that she was not answering the telephone.

She left a note in Chinese that was still in the hands of translators yesterday, but throughout the headline-grabbing case that had been pending for more than two years, Chang had pleaded not guilty, claiming that the money she took was owed to her by the university and that other charges were exaggerated.

In all, she faced 205 counts of grand larceny, forgery and falsification of business records.
Students, some of them Taiwanese, claimed that Chang treated them like servants, with one girl telling prosecutors that she was forced to wash Chang's expensive silk underwear by hand.

Chang's neighbors testified to her extravagant lifestyle, her pricey clothes and her three Mercedes.

The New York Daily News has also reported that Chang was the prime suspect in the 1990 murder of her first husband, Ruey Fung Tsai.

"Tsai scrawled a deathbed note to detectives claiming she was behind the hit job," the newspaper said.

However, with Chang"s death, that case too is likely to be closed.

Chang told the court that she had raised US$20 million for St John's and that in the process she had spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of her own money.

She said that the university owed her the money that she embezzled, but the prosecution claimed she spent a fortune on gambling and online dating services.

Chang had developed a national reputation as an ambassador and fund-raiser for the university.

After the case was closed, Chang's lawyers issued a statement saying: "Cecilia Chang dedicated 30 years of her life to St John's University."

"She was a prolific fund-raiser and tireless advocate for her beloved Asian Studies program at the university. Her death today is a sad ending to a complex human drama," the statement said.

Chang had an undergraduate degree from Tamkang University, Taipei, and a graduate degree from [regionally accredited] Columbia University in New York.

If convicted of all charges, she would have faced a prison sentence of between 10 and 20 years.

That's what I call taking one for the team.? Dear old President Harrington won't be forced to accept all those free gifts any more, and anything else that shows up missing he can blame on Chang too.

'Dean of Mean' gave luxury gifts to uni president
Edvantage | Fri Oct 19 2012

NEW YORK, Brooklyn - St John's University's former dean of Asian Studies, Cecilia Chang, gifted expensive presents to the university's president - who is a priest.

Rev. Donald Harrington, a member of the order of St. Vincent de Paul, which champions the needs of the poor, received watches - a Patek Philippe and a Omega and he was even fitted for suits at Sam's Tailor in Hong Kong.

Cecilia Chang is standing trial in Queens after being accused of stealing more than US$1 million (S$1.22m) for personal expenses, travel and gambling, and for forcing students to work as housekeepers and chauffeurs in order to keep their scholarships.

The New York Daily News reported that the priest was cross-examined in court on Thursday, where he revealed that he listened to Chang who told him that it was a cultural mistake to turn down gifts.

The priest revealed that he did not receive a salary but instead he received a monthly stipend of US$200, and he also lived on an inheritance.

During the cross-examination, the head of the university admitted that he was roomed in plush hotels when he travelled. In Hong Kong, he stayed at the Peninsula hotel and the Regent Hotel's presidential suite.

The Rev. Donald Harrington admitted to accepting expensive gifts from ex-dean Cecilia Chang, who is on trial for bribing students to act as her servants in exchange for scholarships.

The priest said that he had bought the house in Cape Cod with the university's former COO in 1999.

Rev. Harrington said he was fitted for suits at the famed Sam's Tailor in Hong Kong.

He also accepted a Patek Philippe wristwatch, which later cost $1,600 to repair.

She and her son, Steven Chang made use of scholarship students as their personal housekeepers.

[ham]

You really should. Unless you believe that the dean blasting holes in her husband, stealing the silverware, threatening to deport students who won't hand wash her underwear, etc., etc., are just supposed to be the hallmarks of a Gold Standard RA operation.

What do you know?
Are you privy to the codespeak and secret handshakes of the inner circle?
As I repeat often, universities are literally crammed with you-know-who...why? Who knows...the right party card, skin color or both...while tax paying drones celebrate diversity footing the bill...what can one do about it?

[Herbert Spencer]

She and her son, Steven Chang made use of scholarship students as their personal housekeepers.

Wonder where Hawaii attorney Steven Chang went to law school???

Why, St. John's, of course!

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/steven-chang/49/b28/42b

On a scholarship? I'm sure it was because he is such a brilliant student and had nothing at all to do with dear old mom threatening to put three slugs in the law school admissions committee.

[WilliamW]

Wonder where Hawaii attorney Steven Chang went to law school???

Why, St. John's, of course!

Check out Steven Chang's "Estate Planing" [sic] website. Something tells me that the "planing" they do is like carpenters do to make doors fit, as in trimming it down a little (or maybe a lot).



Estate Planing?

Also note the caduceus in the logo. The caduceus is often misused as the symbol for medicine (instead of the correct Rod of Asclepius). In any context it still seems like an odd choice for an estate "planer." Lawyers often go with Justitia or some variation on the scales of justice. Although many would agree that the more snakes in the logo the more closely it resembles the legal system.

The caduceus has a "long-standing and abundantly attested historical association" with "commerce, theft, deception, and death."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caduceus#Mi...f_medicine

Given his unfortunate family history, Lawyer Chang just might have meant the caduceus after all.