Used $200,000 grant money for personal expenses.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Manoj Jha, a professor at Baltimore’s Morgan State University (MSU), has been convicted of orchestrating a fraud scheme that got him $700,000 in government research grants.
Jha, 46, was originally indicted in 2012 on charges of defrauding the National Science Foundation (NSF) out of $200,000, via its Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program, and then attempting to defraud the same program out of an additional $500,000. Jha told the NSF that he was using the grant money to fund a highway development project, but was actually using the funds for his own personal use; prosecutors uncovered evidence that Jha was paying off outstanding credit card debt, as well as his mortgage, with the funds obtained for the non-existent project.
According to information released by the Department of Justice, Jha applied for the funding through a company called Amar Transportation Research and Consulting Inc (ATRC), for which he was its sole president and director. When applying with the STTR, the applicant must be with a small business at the time, and must commit to conducting at least 40% of the necessary research by the small business, while 30% is done by a partnering institution – in this case, the University of Maryland. Since this was all grant money, not a loan, Jha would not have been expected to pay it back.
Additionally, Jha was the principal investigator on two sub-contracts that MSU had with the Department of Defense, which gave about $100,000 worth of stipends to students under Jha’s purview. These stipends were given between March 4, 2008 and June 30, 2012, and evidence was submitted at the trial that between July of 2009 and 2010, Jha made up phony reasons for several students to give stipend money back to him. The amount of money Jha got from his students was around $36,000 – all of which went into his personal bank accounts.
In order to cover his tracks, Jha created false documentation, such as time sheets and expenditure reports. According to the Department of Justice, the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) requested the aforementioned documents, as well as a full list of individuals working on the highway project. Jha provided these via his attorney in March 2011, including bi-weekly time sheets that “were created by Jha only after receiving the OIG letter, and in such a way as to give the false appearance that the time sheets had been maintained and signed contemporaneously with the research scientist’s work.”
Jha was found guilty of several criminal counts, including four counts of wire fraud, one count of mail fraud and falsifying records, obstruction of justice, and theft of government-owned property. He now faces 20 years in prison for all his counts, and an additional 10 years for the theft of government-owned property. Jha also misrepresented his involved with the University of Maryland, through which he was able to obtain a $100,000 investment.
The apprehension of Jha is part of an ongoing effort by President Obama’s Financial Fraud Enforcement Task Force (FFETF), said the Justice Department. The organization was “created in November 2009 to wage an aggressive, coordinated and proactive effort to investigate and prosecute financial crimes,” and is responsible for filing 10,000 financial fraud cases against nearly 15,000 defendants over the last three fiscal years.
Jha was a professor of civil engineering at MSU at the time of his arrest and indictment. From 2007-2011, he was also a Maryland Delegate to the House of Delegates for National Society of Professional Engineers, according to his page on the MSU website. Jha earned his B.E. degree in mechanical engineering, from Durgapur’s National Institute of Technology, in 1991. He then came to the US, earning his master’s degree in the same field from Old Dominion University in Virginia in 1993. He then went on to obtain his Ph.D. from the University of Maryland at College Park, in civil engineering “with transportation specialization,” in 2000. He currently resides in Severn, Maryland.
Jha is not the first MSU faculty member to become the subject of a criminal investigation. According to the Baltimore Sun, Robert Lee Terrell, director of the school’s Restricted Funds Accounting office, is under investigation for allegedly stealing $66,000 in state funding while in charge of MSU’s grants and contracts.
His sentencing is currently scheduled for July 11.
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com