Cecilia Chang’s house with a police car outside (Ellis Kaplan)
St. John’s University’s so-called “Dean of Mean,” Cecilia Chang, was found dead of an apparent suicide inside her Queens home this morning, a day after melting down on the witness stand.
Chang was on trial for allegedly embezzling $1 million from St. John’s and using foreign students as her personal, indentured servants.
Chang hung herself and cops found her body at 7:38 a.m. inside the disgraced administrator’s Jamaica Estates home, according to federal and local law enforcement sources.
Chang attempted suicide twice before she was successful, sources said.
She tried to slit her wrists and kill herself with gas from her fireplace, according to law enforcement sources. When both of those attempts failed, she hanged herself.
A member of the defense team showed up at Chang’s house to pick her up this morning, and no one answered the door, according to law enforcement sources.
The driver smelled gas and called authorities, who eventually got inside Chang’s home and found her body, sources said.
Brooklyn federal Judge Sterling Johnson Jr., presiding over her trial, called Chang’s death a “Shakespearean tragedy.”
The judge theorized that Chang wanted to testify on her own behalf yesterday as a final sign-off.
“That could be why wanted to testify — sayonara,” Johnson said, outside the presence of jurors. “She wanted to get it off her chest.”
The judge added: “We never know how an individual handles pressure.”
Johnson declared a mistrial without jurors in court. He then went back to the juror’s room and broke the shocking news behind closed doors.
“Mrs. Chang is no longer with us,” Johnson announced to jurors, according to panelists.
For several seconds, jurors said they had no idea what Johnson was trying to tell them, before he went into the grim details.
“We were stunned, stunned,” said juror Joan Brophy, a Staten Island resident. “We were not expecting to hear something that tragic.”
“We were shocked,” Brophy added. “It was a shame because she probably punished herself more than anyone could. She didn’t deserve to die. She punished herself far worse than anyone here could have.”
Defense lawyer Joel Cohen called his client’s case a “complex human drama” and lauded her work for St. John’s.
“Cecilia Chang dedicated 30 years of her life to St. John’s University,” Cohen said in a prepared statement. “She was a prolific fundraiser and tireless advocate for her beloved Asian Studies program at the university. Her death today is a sad ending to a complex human drama.”
A St. John’s spokesman urged students, staff and worshippers to pray for Chang’s family.
“St. John’s University was saddened to learn this morning of the death of [Cecilia] Chang,” said Dominic Scianna, associate vice president for external relations.
“We ask the entire St. John’s community to pray for her and her family.”
Chang’s death came hours after a disastrous stint on the witness stand that left jurors laughing at her tortured explanations.
Under withering cross-examination by prosecutors, Chang’s answers became so lengthy and circuitous that Johnson continually reminded her to simply answer yes or no.
More than two-dozen times, Johnson ordered her responses stricken from the record. He cut her off dozens of times.
“I thought it was a mistake that she ever took the stand,” said juror Manuel Medina, as the Hempstead, LI, man left court today.
Fellow juror Brophy called Chang’s testimony “pitiful” and “desperate.”
“Personally I thought it wa pitiful. I felt sorry for her yesterday on the stand,” Brophy said.
“She rambled a bit. The judge had to admonish her. She just sounded rather desperate.”
Chang testified yesterday that she never forced students to work at her home by threatening them.
She said they simply were entertaining donors to the university as part of their work-study program.
“The students always cook food for the table,” Chang said.
Students who couldn’t afford housing stayed at her home rent-free, she insisted.
“I am always helping some poor students,” Chang said.
Jurors leaving the courthouse today said they weren’t buying Chang’s story.
“I think it seemed pretty clear that she had broken various laws,” said one male panelist from Brooklyn.
Another male juror from Nassau County bluntly summed up: “In my gut, I felt what she did was wrong.”
Students had previously testified that Chang forced them to wash her underwear by hand.
The former dean of Asian Studies testified that washing clothes was simply a routine that began after one student offered to wash Chang’s clothes at the same time she did her own laundry.
The defendant told jurors she never used university money for herself — only for legitimate business expenses.
But jurors ended up laughing at some of her preposterous explanations.
Prosecutors said Chang tasked students with revising her credit-card billing statements by cutting and pasting parts of old statements, to create phony records submitted to the university.
“They actually prepared inaccurate statements for customers to make it easier for them to get reimbursed?” asked Brooklyn Assistant US Attorney Charles Kleinberg.
“Yes,” Chang replied.
Chang’s decision to testify on her own behalf completely backfired.
When a prosecutor asked why she told investigators she didn’t own any overseas bank accounts despite having more than $200,000 in one Hong Kong bank, Chang said she hadn’t remembered — because she’d been drinking before the interview.
She said she’d also forgotten a $40,000 bank account, but proudly said she had told probers about her Asia Bank account in Queens.
“I’ve got so many bank accounts all over the world, I only remembered Asia Bank,” she said to more laughs.
While answering various questions about a tax form that misstated her place of residence as Taiwan and her citizenship as Taiwanese — she also holds US citizenship — Chang elicited laughter when directed by the judge to answer one question with either a yes or a no.
“Five percent yes, ninety-five percent no,” Chang said.
Additional reporting by David K. Li