NEW YORK
New York Magazine
By Steve Fishman
The president of St. John’s University, Father Donald Harrington, will announce his retirement this afternoon. The news comes in the midst of an investigation into the conduct of both Harrington and his chief of staff, Rob Wile, after allegations of corruption and misuse of university finances. Wile will resign effective June 30, according to sources.
“The difficulties for everyone during the past year have convinced me, after much prayer and reflection, that the time to leave the presidency has now come,” Harrington wrote in an internal communication to the St. John’s community.
The dual departures follow a series of New York Magazine stories detailing a web of undisclosed, interlocking business interests between Harrington and Wile. Particularly troubling to investigators was a real-estate venture partnership that was struck at the same time that Harrington recommended Wile for hundreds of thousands of dollars of no-interest loans from the university.
The changes at the top of St. John’s, one of the country’s largest Catholic universities, follow the trial of former dean Cecilia Chang, who committed suicide after being accused of defrauding the university for more than $1 million. Both Wile and Harrington benefited from the generosity of Chang, who picked up the bill for vacations, expensive suits, and jewelry, and fraudulently passed the expenses along to the university. At one point, Wile signed off on her expense reports. “You don’t see stuff like this except in corrupt companies,” said Jeffrey Sonnenfield of Yale University, an expert in business governance.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.