NATION : Ex-University President Draws 10-Year Term for $3-Million Fraud
OKLAHOMA CITY — The former president of Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant was sentenced to 10 years in prison today for defrauding the school of more than $3.4 million, including $39,000 spent on furniture for his home.
Leon Hibbs, 59, asked for a community-service sentence, but U.S. District Judge Ralph Thompson said the former university president had had his chance at public service and “you exploited it.”
Hibbs was convicted of giving students on scholarship no-show jobs instead of paying them out of a scholarship fund. He then diverted money from the fund to friends and relatives and bought a trailer and furniture for his home, prosecutors said.
Hibbs repaid the money taken from the fund by putting family members and others on the state payroll in jobs that required little or no work and having their salaries deposited into the scholarship fund.
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