A former St. John’s University dean used Forbes magazine’s famed list of the wealthiest people in the world as a guidebook to solicit million-dollar donations from them in exchange for honorary degrees, a student testified yesterday.
And disgraced ex-dean Cecilia Chang planned to funnel most, if not all, of the donations into a private foundation she controlled — not to St. John’s, student Evelyn Lin said.
Lin, who did a work-study program under Chang, who was then the Asian Studies dean, testified that Chang instructed her to find wealthy people willing to give cash to get St. John’s honorary degrees.
“We went on Forbes [Web site] and looked for the top 200 richest people in the world,” Lin testified. “We sent each one a letter asking, ‘Would you like to receive an honorary doctorate degree?’ ”
If billionaires responded, Chang followed up with a letter, and, “She’d tell them she’d want a million-dollar donation,” Lin said.
Chang said she planned to keep the bulk of the donated money in the foundation, Lin testified.
Prosecutors showed jurors one such letter to Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, a mining magnate from Perth, Australia, who at the time was Australia’s wealthiest person, according to Forbes.
In that Jan. 13, 2009, letter on St. John’s stationery, Chang offered Forrest an honorary degree in exchange for a donation ranging from $500,000 to several million dollars to the Global Development Initiative Foundation — not to St. John’s.
Lin testified that when federal authorities searched Chang’s office at St. John’s before her September 2010 arrest, she spotted Chang hunched over the fireplace of her residence that same day.
“I saw her burning some documents in the fireplace,” Lin told jurors. “She looked a little nervous and panicked.”
Lin’s revelations were made at Chang’s trial on charges of fraud and forced labor.
Another witness, St. John’s staffer Marianna Addabbo, testified that Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Al Saud of Saudi Arabia received a St. John’s honorary doctorate after contributing to the Chang-created foundation.
Authorities previously have said Alwaleed’s own foundation gave $250,000 to Chang’s “Global Development Initiative Foundation” in the belief that it was donating to St. John’s.
Addabbo testified that Chang directed her to open a separate bank account for the foundation.