NYU's Stern School of Embezzlement: The Ten Step Whistleblowing 2010 Cheat Sheet
24 year-old NYU film and history student Michael Peaden, who probably pays a lot of money to go to NYU, figured out that the chemistry department's manager had been taking money from the school....via liquor store receipts. His reward?
But Peaden went to the school's director of investigations. "I related the story as I knew it. And he said, 'No!' "Peaden said that, over the following year, he heard no further word about the matter. NYU never thanked him. He learned of the outcome only by reading The Post.
So, here's how you get past this class, winning the approval of your chosen pricey institution of higher education:
1. Find liquor store receipts from one guy that have been turned into the school's bursar for five years, adding up to somewhere in the area of $409K in pocketed expense reimbursements.
2. Figure out exactly how this works, down to the paperwork filed and everything.
3. Then figure out how you figured all of this out. If it involves somebody tipping you off, make sure you have all potential tipsters killed, silenced, or at least paid off.
4. Find another department that doesn't have a manager smart enough to do this.
5. Get that person fired. Don't forget to buy the required reading. Or steal it.
6. Apply formula learned in steps one and two to extort enough money to buy you a small Jamaican rum plantation.
7. Open up some offshore accounts. Put all your money in there as well as the money you're making cheating NYU out of hundreds of thousands of dollars.
8. Get a good friend to remind you every nine days that they're a private institution who doesn't give a shit about you, so you don't have to feel too bad.
9. Hang tight. This is the tough part. Save up enough money for five years while not leaving the same trail behind you that you did.
10. Cash in when you have exactly enough—and no more—to buy said Jamaican rum plantation. Stop the scheme, drop out of school, and move to Jamaica. Let me know when you're through, and we'll write the story and send it to NYU for final approval.
And once it appears here, that means you've passed! Learn from history: you save your school hundreds of thousands of dollars after spending tens of thousands of dollars on education, they're only going to stonewall you for helping them out until you learn about your valiant efforts and integrity through, of all places, the New York Post. Obviously, Michael Peaden failed. Learn from his mistakes. Besides, you didn't pay all that money from NYU to learn nothing about the value of whistleblowers, right? Right.
Showing up to class is only part of an education; when you get down to it, it's the passing grades that count.
[Previously: NYU Will Pay You $400,000 for Booze Receipts Found in the Trash]