FAIL! Shamed CUNY administrator Chris Koutsoutis outside court yesterday. (Warzer Jaff)
A top administrator at CUNY’s Zicklin School of Business pleaded guilty yesterday to forging signatures to raise failing students’ grades — and alleged that four professors helped in the scam.
Chris Koutsoutis, 56, admitted in Manhattan Criminal Court that he faked colleagues’ signatures on 11 forms to boost the grades of eight students in danger of flunking out.
The scheme kept the students, including Wall Streeters and other full-time financiers, enrolled — and their bucks rolling in. Their tuition, sometimes paid by the firms they worked for, ranged from $45,000 to $75,000.
“Dishonesty has no place in a college education,” said Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr.
The Post exposed the cheating scandal in June (above left).
Koutsoutis, director of Zicklin’s executive programs, said he forged the signatures of faculty and administrators on grade-change forms between Nov. 6, 2010, and June 2, 2011.
“I did this to lift the grade-point averages of eight different students who had failed to meet the necessary academic requirements to obtain their degree from Zicklin,” he said.
When the failing students asked him for help, Koutsoutis said, he faked the forms, giving phony reasons for the higher grades, such as “completed missing work” and “re-evaluation of previously un-submitted work.”
He raised some grades from “F” or “incomplete” to “A-minus,” he said. Students below a “B” average could be booted.
Koutsoutis claimed faculty members helped further the ruse by letting students sit in on other courses for credit.
He named Joseph Onochie, Aloke Ghosh, Avner Wolf and Giora Harpaz.
Ghosh called Koutsoutis’ allegations “simply untrue.” He said he discovered his forged signature and reported it to administrators in June 2011.
Onochie, who was removed as director of the executive MBA program, also denied helping in the scam: “Absolutely not. This is ridiculous.”
Harpaz and Wolf did not return calls for comment.
Koutsoutis also admitted forging the name of Frank Fletcher, the executive director of Zicklin’s grad programs, as approving the changes.
He claimed students didn’t pay him off: “I received no monetary or other tangible benefits in exchange for my actions.”
Judge Larry Stephen asked what, if not money, was his motive. “I was giving them a better opportunity to succeed,” Koutsoutis replied. “I wish I had a better answer.”
In a plea deal, Koutsoutis copped to 21 counts of forgery and falsifying records. He faces six months jail when he’s sentenced on Feb. 6.
“This is a much bigger issue involving Zicklin and academic professionals,” said his lawyer Mark Bederow. He added that the scandal included “at least four professors with some degree of knowledge of what was going on.”