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US Academy President Caught Embellishing Resume, Will Resign
An anonymous reader writes "The 233-year old American Academy of Arts and Sciences has announced that its longtime President and Chief Executive, Leslie Cohen Berlowitz, has agreed to resign effective at the end of this month following an investigation of charges of resume embellishment and other misconduct. Berlowitz falsely claimed to have received a doctorate from New York University, and has also been criticized for her behavior towards scholars and subordinates, and for her compensation package ($598,000 for 2012) relative to the size of the non-profit organization she led. The Academy, based in Cambridge MA, was founded during the American Revolutionary War and is one of the most prestigious honorary societies for the American intellectual elite, extending across math and science, arts and letters, business, law and public affairs. The active membership rolls contain people you've heard of; the incoming class list provides a more manageable glimpse of the society's breadth."
That's not so bad. Lie on a home loan or a credit application and you can get 30 years (which I'm betting that she probably also did if she was willing to lie on grants). This is the charge that federal prosecutors go after if they can, since the 30 year penalty ensures a plea agreement (this was famously used to oust Baltimore police chief Ed Norris when he took a loan from his father and listed that money as an asset for a home loan). And since Carmen Ortiz will be in charge of this case, you can almost guarantee this will be employed. And if there is one thing we've learned about Carmen Ortiz (other than the Aaron Swartz case) it is that she does not tolerate anyone defrauding banks--except other banks or bankers.
It's easy to get these guys, The American Academy of Arts and Sciences, mixed up with with these guys, The American Association for the Advancement of Science. They're not the same. The latter are the ones that publish Science, the prestigious scientific journal. The former, I'm not sure who those guys are. Seems like I've heard controversy about this woman before.