A former assistant dean at Seton Hall Law School was sentenced to 36 months in prison for defrauding her former employer of more than $1.3 million, U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger said.
Teresina DeAlmeida, 59, and her co-conspirators, Silvia Cardoso, 61, of Warren, and Rose Martins, 44, of East Hanover, previously pleaded guilty to committing wire fraud.
“The defendant abused her position of trust as assistant dean to orchestrate an elaborate embezzlement scheme spanning more than a decade,” said U.S. Attorney Philip R. Sellinger. “As a result, she and her co-conspirators stole more than $1.3 million intended to benefit the school and its students.”
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“Trust is something intangible, a belief that people with access to large sums of money will not steal it. DeAlmeida took money intended for college students and did so for more than a decade,” said FBI Acting Special Agent-in-Charge Nelson Delgado.
Between 2009 and July 2022, DeAlmeida, Martins and Cardoso fraudulently embezzled more than $1.3 million. DeAlmeida was an assistant dean in charge of finance functions, and Martins served as her assistant. Cardoso, DeAlmeida’s sister, was also employed by the school as a support staff, according to court documents.
The suspects defrauded the university in various ways:
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From 2009 to 2013, DeAlmeida directed a salesperson to fraudulently pay Martins and Cardoso for no work while submitting false invoices to the school to obtain reimbursement for monies paid to her co-conspirators.
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From 2010 to 2022, DeAlmeida and Martins directed salespeople to purchase gift cards and prepaid debit cards for personal use, fraudulently reimbursing themselves for nonexistent goods and services. Her co-conspirators used DeAlmeida’s school-issued credit card to purchase similar cards from the school’s bookstore, forging Martin’s approval signatures and DeAlmeida fraudulently approving the charges.
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They also sued DeAlmeida’s school-issued card to make more than $70,000 in personal purchases such as clothes and apparel, while altering the receipts they submitted to the school for reimbursement.
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In 2015, Martins created and used a shell LLC to submit more than $208,000 in fraudulent invoices for bogus services.
In addition to the prison sentence, Judge Neals sentenced DeAlmeida to two years of supervised release and ordered restitution of approximately $1,397,000.
U.S. Attorney Sellinger credited special agents of the Internal Revenue Services, led by Special Agent in Charge Jenifer L. Piovesan in Newark; special agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, under the direction of Acting Special Agent in Charge Nelson I. Delgado in Newark; and special agents from the Department of Education, led by Acting Special Agent in Charge John Carlo in charge of the investigation.
Email: alewis@njpressmedia.com
Alexander Lewis is an award-winning reporter and photojournalist whose work spans many topics.
This article originally appeared on MyCentralJersey.com: Former Essex NJ County Dean Sentenced to 3 Years in Prison for Fraud
