Seth Andrew, a senior advisor in the Office of Educational Technology under former President Barack Obama, was recently arrested and charged with wire fraud, making false statements to a bank, and money laundering more than $218,000 from a system of charter schools he’d founded. The maximum sentence for wire fraud and money laundering is 20 years in prison. Making false statements to a bank carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison. An attorney for Andrew reported that he will enter a plea of not guilty.
“As alleged, Seth Andrew abused his position as a founder of a charter school network to steal from the very same schools he helped create. Andrew is not only alleged to have stolen the schools’ money but also to have used the stolen funds to obtain savings on a mortgage for a multimillion-dollar Manhattan apartment. Thanks to the FBI’s diligent work, Andrew now faces federal charges for his alleged scheme,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss.
According to the report, Andrew founded Democracy Prep Public School in 2005. They were a series of 20 public charter schools based in New York City. He left the network in 2013 and accepted a job in the United States Department of Education, where he worked at the White House. Seth Andrews has a Master’s Degree in Education Leadership and is also the co-founder of the leftist organization “Democracy Builders.”
You can read the full report here.
Even though Andrew claimed to cut ties with the schools in January 2017, he was caught between March and August 2019 giving his school-affiliated email to a bank employee. He was trying to convince the bank that he was still associated with Democracy Prep in order to steal $218,005 of the network’s reserve money. The report describes Andrew as trying to conceal the source of the stolen funds and make it appear that the funds belonged to a non-profit organization he had founded.
Democracy Prep CEO Natasha Trivers alerted authorities about the unauthorized withdrawals and told media outlets that Seth left the network in 2013 and that his alleged actions to obtain savings for a Manhattan apartment are a “profound betrayal of all that we stand.” She clarified that the crimes did not pose any risk to students, staff, or operations in any way.
FBI Assistant Director William F. Sweeney Jr. said that every home buyer’s objective is to lock the lowest interest rate when applying for a loan, but that stealing that money from your former employer to make up the difference is an abuse of power and position.
“We allege today that Andrew did just that, and since the employer, he stole from was a charter school organization, the money he took belonged to an institution serving school-aged children. Today Andrew himself is learning one of life’s most basic lessons – what doesn’t belong to you is not yours for the taking,” Sweeney Jr. said.
While he was released on a $500,000 bond, Capitol protesters continue to sit in jail and solitary confinement, without bond.
Even though Obama continues to tout running a “scandal-free” presidency, it is no surprise that fraudulent activity on this level occurred from an Obama-era disciple. The mainstream media continues to suppress any story that suggests a bad apple in the Obama or Biden Administration while censoring and attacking conservatives for every little tweet.
If Andrew is making false statements to a bank and stealing education funds in 2019, what was he doing during his White House role with the U.S Department of Education back in 2013?
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