A Manhattan insurance executive used the name of a prominent 9/11 victim he didn’t even know and, without ever telling the man’s family, started a namesake scholarship fund that never gave a red cent to college-bound students, The Post has learned.
The IRS just yanked the tax-exempt status of the fund named in memory of Neil Levin.
Scholarship founder Paul Vignone claimed $3,000 a year would be awarded to students who lost parents on 9/11, as tribute to the late Port Authority executive director.
“I had never heard about this fund,” fumed Levin’s widow, Christy Ferer, a former television reporter and PA commissioner who is now Mayor Bloomberg’s liaison to 9/11 families. “It is a shock to me.”
On top of that, the managing partner of a Penn Life Insurance affiliate claimed that he reached out to various organizations to pair scholars with grants but in the end could find no worthy student. About 3,000 children lost a parent that day.
Vignone dug up a dusty 2009 bank statement revealing that $13,800 remained in the fund’s TD Bank account, but he couldn’t specify the amount raised.
“It’s my understanding that we have to return the money to the contributors,” he said following Post inquiries.
“I will do my best to get that done shortly, and if there are any shortages, I will make up the difference.”