Wheeling Jesuit’s investigated vice president leaving

J. Davitt McAteer leaving Wheeling Jesuit U. As the ChiSox TV announcer would say, “He gone.”

McAteer is under federal investigation for how he handled millions in NASA grants. In 2009 he was on the inside at WJU to the extent that he was appointed, we know not by whom, acting president when the Jesuit president was fired peremptorily and mysteriously by fellow Jesuits after two years in office.

He will be on the outside as of June 30, when his contract will be not renewed, no reason given by the current president. In the affidavit submitted by the investigating federal agent, McAteer is said to have admitted diversion of federal funds to cover unrelated WJU expenses and been told no problem by the WJU directors.

Very sticky business.

President Beyer and “James Fleming” (thus the news story, not saying he is Rev., S.J., who as University Vice President and Chief of Staff is the highest-ranking Jesuit at WJU) take over the relevant federal programs.

(Story broken and posted at Fox by AP 8 hrs before this by Wheeling Intelligencer, based on email sent to alumni, which email is to be only announcement, said WJU spokeswoman.)

Wheeling Jesuit: six-year conspiracy to misuse millions?

AP’s Wheeling Jesuit and Davitt McAteer story by Vicki Smith in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — One of the world’s foremost experts on mine safety — from gold mines in Chile to the coal mines of southern West Virginia — stands accused by a NASA fraud investigator of conspiring with the Catholic college where he now works to use millions of federal grant dollars for personal gain and the school’s benefit.

It’s in a sworn affidavit by a NASA Inspector General agent “used to obtain search warrants.”

The sworn affidavit by an agent who works out of the Goddard Space Center in Greenbelt, Md., said those expenses range from McAteer’s salary — which surged from $130,300 in 2006 to $230,659 by 2008 — to cellphones, computers, technical support and salaries for other staff, including a secretary in McAteer’s Shepherdstown [WV] private law office.

McAteer’s reports on mine disasters at the governor’s request have been scrutinized.

The reports he authored are now among the evidence that federal investigators are studying. Among the search warrant requests were “any and all documents” relating to work done on those three reports, including financial documents, travel expense, time cards and interview notes.

There were five NASA grants, regarding which:

[T]he agent found the duties and salaries of individuals “did not, in any way, benefit the substantive work being done on the federal award projects.”

“The motive for (McAteer’s) actions is evidenced by the substantial sum of money (Wheeling Jesuit) improperly received,” the agent concluded.

Wheeling Jesuit in jeopardy:

The university may have been complicit in five possible federal crimes: theft of federal funds; major fraud; conspiracy; false claims; and wire fraud, the document said.

There were warnings:

At least twice, the affidavit said, witnesses interviewed for the investigation warned both McAteer and the school that they were breaking the law. A consulting firm hired in 2008 also made similar warnings, the document said.

“We will slowly work on making this right, but we can’t afford to do it at this time,” McAteer is said to have told top university officials in response to the consulting firm’s conclusion, according to the affidavit.

The officials concurred:

Documents the agent obtained indicate the school’s board of directors deliberately circumvented federal spending rules “for the purpose of sustaining . . . its general, non-federal program educational areas.”

The money flowed:

Between fiscal years 2000 and 2009, NASA gave Wheeling Jesuit more than $116 million, more than $65 million of that after McAteer took over the school’s Sponsored Programs Office in 2005.

A whistle-blower claimed she suffered retaliation:

A finance manager in that office told the investigator that McAteer created the Combined Cost Management Service Center when he took over. Merging the billing of the two centers allowed him “to control and consolidate all the expenses, regardless of whether such expenses were related to the federal awards.”

This points to Catherine Smith, who sued the university in January 2010 saying she lost her job “after questioning [as finance manager for the school’s sponsored programs] the way the school billed administrative expenses for government grants,” as reported by the Charleston State-Journal in a story posted Jan. 14, 2010 and reposted as “updated” Feb. 27, 2012.

Wheeling Jesuit and its vice president investigated by feds

Wheeling Jesuit University's Seal (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Holy mackerel! The guy who stood in for the peremptorily fired Jesuit president of Wheeling Jesuit U. in W. Va. in 2009, very big man on campus whose regular job there was to run or oversee federally funded programs involving millions of tax dollars, is being investigated by the federal government.

A federal investigation into J. Davitt McAteer and Wheeling Jesuit University appears to center on how the university handled federal funds between 2005 and 2011 — with an emphasis on how it billed expenses under grant programs or cooperative agreements, court documents indicate.

Documents by those seeking to unseal the warrants

show that NASA, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Office of Inspector General and other agencies seized documents from McAteer’s offices in Wheeling and Shepherdstown on Feb. 16. McAteer, an attorney and former head of the federal Mine Safety and Health Administration, runs WJU’s Office of Sponsored Programs.

Investigators seized, copied and then returned records of expenses billed to federal programs and other records indicating how Wheeling Jesuit handled certain kinds of expenses through its Combined Cost Management Service Center.

Others are to be grilled and perhaps targeted:

The motions also say investigators are looking at current and former employees of Wheeling Jesuit, and some are expected to appear before a grand jury.

“We continue to cooperate with federal investigators,” WJU spokeswoman Michelle Rejonis said. “As information becomes available to us, we will gather information and work from there.”

The argument to unseal the warrants pits government wanting to marshal all relevant data before showing its hand (so far getting its way) vs. McAteer et al. protesting secrecy and its deleterious effects on his and the university’s reputation and ongoing performance by the funded university operations.

The fired Jesuit, Rev. Julio Giulietti, had finished two years at the Wheeling Jesuit helm. His firing was followed by widespread alumni protests and coverage in two national publications , all of which was reported and discussed in this blog. A search in this blog can uncover these reports and discussions. Giulietti went on to work in Viet Nam as representative of Loyola University-Chicago in developing programs of nurse and physician education.

Wheeling Jesuit University office raided by Feds

J. Davitt McAteer’s, to be exact. He heads several govt.-sponsored on-campus programs, is high-profile mine-safety expert, took over WJU as acting president when Rev. Julio Giulietti SJ was peremptorily ousted in August of ’09, serving in that capacity until February of ’10.

Charleston Daily Mail:

Wheeling Jesuit University acknowledged Wednesday it’s cooperating with federal investigators who seized records from the offices of J. Davitt McAteer, the school’s vice president for federally sponsored research programs and a prominent critic of the coal mining industry.

The files were removed Feb. 15, but spokeswoman Michelle Rejonis said she didn’t know which federal agency was involved.

Wheeling Jesuit has many federally sponsored programs, including collaborations with NASA and a center that helps commercialize new technologies, Rejonis said, so it works with several agencies. Many of those agencies have an Office of Inspector General, an entity that investigates fraud, waste and abuse.

Chris Zumpetta, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Wheeling, also declined to identify the agency involved but acknowledged there is “an ongoing investigation.”