Temple University & MOSHE PORAT, we need to talk about the Coconspirators and juicing ranking numbers

Former Temple Business School Dean Indicted for Fraud... lots and lots of Fraud. He disbanded a “ranking committee” which resulted in less oversight

Fake it until you make it - or just provide false data - right Moshe?

Your acronym glossary

Online Master of Business Administration -OMBA

Global Master of Business Administration -GMBA

Part-time Master of Business Administration -PMBA

Online Master of Science in Human Resource Management -HRM

Online Master of Science in Digital Innovation in Marketing -DIM

Executive Master of Business Administration -EMBA

Online Bachelor of Business Administration -OBBA

2018 Class Action Smith et al v. Temple University

What you should know is in February of 2018 Temple University was named as a Defendant in a Class Action Lawsuit (see SMITH v. TEMPLE UNIVERSITY EDPA Civil Case No: 2:18-cv-00590 ¹) in January of 2021 the Court approved a settlement.

It is entirely up to you if you want to read the 2018 EDPA-Civil litigation. But I’m telling you unequivocally, the 2018 Civil Class Action Lawsuit directly ties to the 2021 Indictment (MOSHE PORAT) and Information (of cooperators MARIORIE O'NEILL and ISAAC GOTTLIEB) — eventually you’ll understand there’s almost always a method to my madness. I like to think I’m pretty thorough and I endeavor to give my readers/followers a more holistic picture of how the puzzle pieces fit. In short Temple University acknowledged that Porat et al engaged in fraudulent behavior and that caused false data to be transmitted to US News - who bumped up Temple University specifically the Fox Business school to # 1 for four (4) consecutive years - students sued stating they hand to injured.

• 01/28/2021 Consent MOTION for Approval of Cy Pres Distribution filed by BRETT BONDS, IBRAHIM FETAHI, RYAN FINK, CHRISTOPHER HAMILTON, ARA SARDARBEGIANS, KYLE SMITH, JOHN THOMPSON, SHAWN WYNN.Declaration, Certificate of Counsel. Attachments: # 1 Exhibit, # 2 Text of Proposed Order, # 3 Declaration

• ORDER THAT THE RESIDUAL MONIES FROM THE SETTLEMENT FUNDS SHALL BE DISBURSED TO TEMPLE UNIVERSITY FOR THE ESTABLISHMENT OF TWO SCHOLARSHIP FUNDS AS OUTLINED IN THIS ORDER. SIGNED BY HONORABLE CYNTHIA M. RUFE ON 3/31/21.3/31/2²

Former Temple Business School Dean Indicted for Fraud

Recently the DOJ-OPA issued a Press Release announcing the indictment of;

• the former Dean of Temple University’s Richard J. Fox School of Business and Management has been indicted on charges that he conspired and schemed to deceive the school’s applicants, students, and donors into believing that the school offered top-ranked business degree programs, so they would pay tuition and make donations to Temple.

Porat, 74, of Bala Cynywd, PA, was Dean of Fox Business School from 1996 until 2018.  He also was the Dean of Temple’s School of Sports, Tourism & Hospitality Management from 1998 until 2018. The Indictment https://ecf.paed.uscourts.gov/doc1/153119528793 or you can save a few bucks and pull it down from my public drive

As alleged in the indictment which charges Porat with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of wire fraud. The Indictment further alleges

• from at least 2014 until at least 2018, Porat conspired with a Fox professor named Isaac Gottlieb and a Fox employee named Marjorie O’Neill³ to submit false information about the school’s online MBA (“OMBA”) and part-time MBA (“PMBA”) programs to U.S. News & World Report in order to inflate Fox’s rankings in the annual U.S. News surveys of top OMBA and PMBA programs (see footnote for Gottlieb & O’Neill criminal information)

• conspirators allegedly agreed to provide false information to  U.S. News about the number of Fox’s OMBA and PMBA students who had taken the Graduate Management Admission Test (“GMAT”); the average work experience of Fox’s PMBA students; and the percentage of Fox students who were enrolled part-time because it was believed that better numbers for these metrics would result in better rankings for the programs. (This was after their attempts to lobby U.S. News to improve the University’s “ranking”)

• Indictment charges that the aforementioned scheme was successful. Relying on the false information it had received from Fox, U.S. News ranked Fox’s OMBA program Number One in the country four years in a row (2015 – 2018). U.S. News also moved Fox’s PMBA program up its rankings from No. 53 in 2014 to No. 20 in 2015, to No. 16 in 2016, and to No. 7 in 2017.

• Porat boasted about these rankings in marketing materials directed at potential Fox students and donors. Enrollment in Fox’s OMBA and PMBA programs grew dramatically in a few short years, which led to millions of dollars a year in increased tuition revenues.

• Gottlieb and O’Neill have been charged in a separate Information with one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud (see footnote No 2)

• defendant MARJORIE O'NEILL served as Fox's primary liaison with the Rankings Publications. Before submitting information to theRankings Publications, defendant O'NEILL frequently received directions and guidance from Moshe Porat and defendant ISAAC GOTTLIEB.

• Fox had paid U.S. News for a license to access some of the detailed information that all ofthe business schools had submitted in response to U.S. News's annual questionnaires. Defendant MARIORIE O'NEILL shared this detailed information with defendant ISAAC GOTTLIEB, who arlalyzed it to determine how much weight U.S. News had assigned to each factor.

The trechary of Moshe Porat can not be emphasized enough - the indictment provides an exact time/date stamp

• 6:26 a.m. on January 10, 2018, defendant MARJORIE O'NEILL sent an email to defendant ISAAC GOTTLIEB, stating that Moshe Porat wanted defendant
  GOTTLIEB to calculate where Fox would have been ranked by U.S. News if Fox had accurately reported that only 42 of its 255 new OMBA students had reported GMAT scores

• Later that moming, several Fox administrators and employees told Moshe Porat that Fox should contact U.S. News immediately and correct the misinformation about the number of OMBA students who had reported GMAT scores. Porat initially refused, telling one Fox employee, "it's not tike U.S. News is a federal agency," or words to that effect, and telling another Fox employee, "I just wish you would all stop being so ridiculous," or words to that effect.

Because Porat et al knew the 2018 U.S. News rankings were incorrect, the Dean of Temple University explicitly instructed Porat to refrain from “boasting about the No 1 ranking” yet Porat ignored this directive and he further instructed marketing emails to be sent to prospective donors and students - hence falsity included in the marketing email is precisely what Temple University wanted to avoid

• Jantary 22,2018, Moshe Porat directed other Fox and Temple employees to transmit a marketing email to an email mailing list called the "Porat 100," which included people who were known by Porat to be donors and potential donors to Fox. The subject line of the email read: "#1 ONLINE MBA," and the email stated: "lt may be a new year, but at the Fox School of Business, some things haven't changed. For the fourth straight year, the Fox Online MBA ranks #1 in the nation according to U.S. News & World Report 2018. In the same report, the Fox Online Bachelor ofBusiness ranks #2 in the nation for the second year in a row”

You can pull down multitude of court filings in this article from my Temple University Share Folder or you can pay the >$18.50 from the three separate cases all filed in the EDPA https://ecf.paed.uscourts.gov - if you’re asking me - I think Porat has/had a decent white collar attorney and that’s why he was only indicted on two counts - meaning I actually expect he’s going to take a plea but meh whadda I know.

-Filey

1. 02/12/2018 COMPLAINT against TEMPLE UNIVERSITY - https://ecf.paed.uscourts.gov/doc1/153016900642

05/03/2018- AMENDED DOCUMENT by KYLE SMITH. AMENDED CLASS ACTION COMPLAINT - https://ecf.paed.uscourts.gov/doc1/153117084172 - this is why I am specifically pointing out the 2018 civil litigation because it’s largely echoed in the 2021 Criminal Matter(s)

2. March 31, 2021 Temple University Class Action - Plaintiffs Motion to distribute funds/monies per Settlement Agreement via my public drive

3. United States v. GOTTLIEB EDPA Criminal Case No: 2:21-cr-00160 - Information - Felony (unsealed on 4/16/2021) https://ecf.paed.uscourts.gov/doc1/153119527242 or via my public drive