The former administrator for NYU’s chemistry department was cuffed and carted off to serve at least a year in prison this morning for a wacky, $409,000 phony invoice scheme.
Unnoticed for five years, John Runowicz, 47, went through the trash of Warehouse Wines, on Broadway a block from his office, fished out discarded cash register receipts, and submitted them as cash expenses for running the chemistry department.
Amazingly, the bursar’s office merely checked the math, never noticing that the more than 10,000 little white scraps of register receipts read “Warehouse Wines” at the top, prosecutors said.
“As an NYU law grad, I would hope they spend less time soliciting donations from their alumni until they can run a tighter ship,” quipped Runowicz’s lawyer, Daniel Parker.
Runowicz has admitted his crime, is remorseful, and has emptied his retirement account to pay back $39,000, the lawyer said.
He’ll go before a parole board in a year, and will be imprisoned for no longer than three years under his Manhattan Supreme Court judge ruled today.
The long-running scheme was only uncovered last year after a history student — it didn’t take a math major — learned that Runowicz was having chemistry interns ferry the fishy receipts to the bursar’s office, and sounded the alarm.