A former Medical Center administrator and her sister pleaded guilty late last month to siphoning hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Medical Center over a seven-year period at a total cost to the university of over $500,000.
Adriana Santamaria, who served as the administrator of the edical Center’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology from January 1989 to March 2002, and her sister, Maria Cabrales, issued the pleas on Aug. 24 in U.S. District Court. The sisters each face up to 10 years in prison for their actions, which were the subjects of an intensive investigation by the U.S. Secret Service and U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Santamaria and Cabrales received over $350,000, much of it from federal research grants allocated to the Medical Center, through various fraudulent schemes, according to a statement by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
Georgetown reimbursed the National Institutes of Health, which provided the federal grants, for indirect costs such as utilities as well as the actual grant money that was stolen, resulting in a total cost to the university of over $500,000.
Neither Santamaria nor Cabrales could be reached for comment yesterday evening.
Medical Center spokeswoman Laura Cavender said that the university notified authorities after administrators became aware of the fraudulent transactions.
“Georgetown University appreciates the efforts of the U.S. Attorney’s Office to pursue this issue and press charges after the university reported it to the appropriate authorities,” Cavender said. “Georgetown University immediately worked closely with the National Institutes of Health – the sponsoring agency – and has since reimbursed the agency for all federal funds involved.”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Thomas Zeno, who helped prosecute the case, said that the investigation was conducted primarily by the Secret Service, which brought the case to the U.S. Attorney’s Office about a month ago. The U.S. Attorney’s Office decided to prosecute the case and filed charges on July 28, he said.
Zeno also praised the Medical Center’s “fabulous cooperation” with investigators during the case.
Santamaria’s position gave her control over the Department of Microbiology and Immunology’s overall financial affairs, including its budgetary and spending decisions. She was also responsible for the hiring and supervision of support personnel.
Prosecutors argued that she abused her authority to defraud the edical Center through several schemes, including submitting expense forms to provide honoraria for speakers who never came to campus, and placing her relatives on the university’s payroll for work they never did.
According to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, Santamaria told university accounting officials that Cabrales and her husband were scheduled to give scientific lectures at the Medical Center. She submitted 37 fraudulent expense forms to the Georgetown Accounts Payable Department for a total of $290,000 in speaker’s fees for the lectures, which were never given.
Santamaria received over $69,000 from Cabrales’ bank account in return for submitting the fraudulent forms, prosecutors said.
Investigators also said that Santamaria took advantage of Georgetown’s casual labor employment system, in which the university hires temporary employees for work over a limited period of time. Between November 1995 and June 1998, Santamaria received almost $90,000 after she placed several family members on the university’s casual labor payroll, even though no work was ever performed by her relatives, prosecutors said.
Santamaria was not authorized to hire any temporary employees, according to the statement by the U.S. Attorney’s Office. It is unclear how she was able to place her relatives on the university’s payroll without the authorization of other administrators.
Cavender declined to comment beyond her original statement, saying that the university would not discuss internal personnel matters.
Santamaria also accumulated over $6,800 between July 1996 and February 2002 by submitting expense forms for dinners with administrators or graduate students at restaurants near her home in Centreville, Va. Investigators said the dinners never actually took place.
She also billed the university for personal expenses through purchase requisitions for her department, and charged over $17,000 in personal expenses on her university-issued credit card, including a shipment of lumber from a home supply store to her house, according to investigators.
Santamaria and Cabrales are scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 2.