Dive Brief:
- Shelly Lough, a former cashier at Bethany College in West Virginia, plead guilty Friday to embezzling over $1 million from the school.
- Lough stole the money to pay off two people who were blackmailing her with the threat of revealing an extramarital affair to her husband. Rachell Weese, one of the two involved, was also arrested this month and charged with extortion.
- The felony counts of embezzlement and falsifying accounts could land Lough up to 20 years in prison.
Dive Insight:
Lough will be sentenced on April 8 and her guilty plea and cooperation with the investigation could prevent additional charges from the federal government. While outing the extortion to authorities (and thus her marital indiscretions to her husband) would likely have saved Lough her job and a potentially lengthy stay in prison, her case is now yet another in the long list of fishy financial issues faced by higher ed institutions.