Volume 44, Issue 6. Today is
Cover-up - President ignores Campus Safety, district auditor by not telling police of alleged embezzlement, missing funds
MCC President Larry Christiansen offered no apologies for failing to report alleged crimes he knew about in 2003.
Christiansen became aware of the alleged embezzlement in the athletic department in 2003 after an audit revealed that up to nearly $5,000 was unaccounted for. The athletic department’s secretary at the time, Elena Manuel, did not return deposit receipts to the athletic department, and was suspected of taking the money herself, according to the audit report.
When Christiansen became aware of the events, he went to campus police. At the advice of campus police, the president was told to report the crime to the Mesa Police Department.
Christiansen decided not to report the crime.“We made in 2003 a series of decisions that were in the best interest of the students, which included personnel changes,” Christiansen said when asked if he felt that not reporting the crime to the Mesa Police Department was an ethical decision.
Christiansen added that he did not want to offend MCC’s public safety officers by reporting the crime to Mesa police because MCC’s public safety officers are certified officers.
He compared the situation to having two reporters compare notes with each other. “It would be like having two reporters, and one reporter saying to the other, ‘I want you to check this person’s work, because I’m not really sure of it,’” Christiansen said.
By reporting it directly to Mesa Police, Christiansen acknowledged that it would have been the action that some may have liked.
“I didn’t move forward to the county attorney because I wasn’t sure the lady took the money. We had no proof. I felt in 2003 that I was doing the right thing because if you move forward with this and you guess wrong, strap on your seatbelt for a $300,000 lawsuit all over $4,900. It would have cost me $5,000 to get the one witness back,” Christiansen said, refering to David Rice, football coach at the time. “It was the only witness (Rice) who might have testified against this woman (Manuel).”
“That’s what I faced in ’03, and now somebody in ’06 is saying, ‘By damn, you should have hung her out to dry and taken her out to the county attorney’, and maybe I should have. I didn’t because I wasn’t convinced that was something that we should do,” Christiansen said.
Regarding policy and procedure, Christiansen said that he followed proper policy despite that many people disagree with decisions he made in 2003.
“We have processes in place that attempt to not have those things happen. Clearly there wasn’t enough of these processes’ in place, or they weren’t executed properly,” Christiansen added.
When asked if students can still trust administration at MCC, Christiansen replied, “That makes an assumption that our faculty, staff and students have lost trust...It’s not about right or wrong, it’s about handling criticism.”
Christiansen said he is able to put more stringent policies into place.
“I’m very willing to have more stringent policies any time we have a suspected situation when a crime may have been committed,” Christiansen said.