How the University of South Florida Managed to Dupe the Department of Education: Part Two

As the investigation continues into the Stoneman Douglas High School massacre, we are learning about missed opportunities to save 17 lives. Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel, accused of "incompetence and neglect of duty", has been asked to step down. Resource Officer Scot Peterson, whose job it was to provide security and crime prevention services to the school, was accused of “hiding” while innocents who did not have his officer training were gunned down. The truth of the matter is that the tragedy at Parkland was facilitated by the omissions of others. This is how we begin Part II of our series.

In June 2015, the University of South Florida had a break-in where a computer tower or hard-drive, transcript paper, and other miscellaneous documents were taken. A second burglary occurred at the College of Engineering. The alleged perpetrator was an Iranian who was suspected of being brought in through INTO, a business venture that charges governments or families a premium to accept foreign students from countries like Saudi Arabia that would not otherwise have a pathway to admission. As Fox13 News, Tina Jensen reported: “There were more than 3,000 international students including 142 Saudi Arabian students, enrolled in the USF system in Spring 2015. Wilcox has made the recruitment of international students and creation of partnerships with international universities a focus of his tenure at USF.” This might help to explain the Provost’s own self-serving actions below. The perpetrator was caught on video camera using a swipe card under the door to gain access and burglarize the office. According to the USF Police Department, officers were dispatched to the office. The perpetrator was not caught but hid under a desk. After the break-in, the perpetrator left the country but not before doctoring-up several transcripts using the stolen transcript paper, supplies and hard-drive. Police Officers Chris Daniels and Brian Pearson responded to the break-in and conducted the investigation. It is unclear why Daniels and Peterson did not refer the incident to the State Attorney’s Office or Tampa Police Department. Students were not notified. After Tina Jensen, Fox 13 News Reporter, broke the story about the incident from an anonymous tip, USF released a statement that the safety of students was never at risk, but did not explain how they determined that to be the case.

In this incident, Florida’s Sunshine law took a major hit. USF was not at all transparent with its most important constituency, its students, but also orchestrated a cover-up to prevent the media from covering a newsworthy story. Surprisingly, it was the Provost’s office and not President Judy Genshaft’s office, that was first notified of the burglaries. Provost Ralph Wilcox sent his personal assistant to the Registrar’s office where one break-in occurred to retrieve all Emails and information about the burglary and suspect from the Registrar’s office. The Provost also instructed his assistant to tell the then Interim-acting Registrar, Carrie Garcia and the former Associate Registrar Tony Embry to inform office staff to not send to or copy the Provost on any email concerning the incident. However, the Provost’s assistant, when questioned about a whistleblower’s allegation that the Provost wanted the Emails destroyed, denied the allegation and told USF’s Audit and Compliance Kate Head that while was sent to gather other student records, she picked up no Emails or records pertaining to the suspect.

After concluding their investigation, the USF’s Audit and Compliance staff Kate Head released the following written statement to Fox 13 News: “The Special Assistant indicated that she never requested and/or obtained physical copies of emails from the Interim Registrar or any other employees in the Registrar’s Office regarding the break-in and did not instruct these individuals to delete the subject emails. While the Special Assistant to the Provost was asked to go to the Registrar’s Office by the Provost to pick up some student records from the Interim Registrar, these records were not emails.”

This is false! In an Email sent by former Associate Registrar Tony Embry to Chris Daniels just two days following the burglary, Embry wrote to Daniel's the following: "BTW the Provost Office picked up a copy of all the documents and E-Mails related to the Hussein issue." When questioned, Embry once again re-affirmed to Tina Jensen that the Provost's assistant did in fact pick up records and Emails pertaining to the suspect. So what was USF trying so hard to hide or conceal on that fateful night? It is clear to me that a serious and troubling cover-up took place on the part of high-ranking USF officials, just days following the burglary, and that when State Officials were notified of this cover-up more difficult and hard questions should have been asked of USF – and not just a total reliance on USF’s own Audit and Compliance Office who works for them. However, the hard questions were never asked of USF, who was not held to any kind of accountability for obvious failures and clear-cut omissions. It is still unclear if this was to prevent news of the break-in from leaking out or to keep the incident out of public record or both. The USF Police were told to not publish the information on their crime blotter, though they were officially required to do so under the Clery or Campus Security Act. USF Police even told Embry that “this burglary would not find its way into any newspaper”, and it wouldn’t have, except for a whistleblower’s complaint to Fox News that exposed the cover-up.

However great or small, there was a possibility that the computer tower contained student records. USF claims the tower only contained a single record. Despite USF's denial that "only one student's information was on the hard drive", this is simply not true. It is believed that other students’ information was contained on the stolen hard drive, and this was how the student suspect was able to make what Tony Embry stated to the USF police and DOE as "near perfect forgeries." The student suspect changed his grades to show better marks than what he earned, and he also changed his courses to those he never took as well. The only way that he could possibly do so is because he used the other students' information contained on the hard drive. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recommends notification whenever bad or questionable activity risks personal identity or confidential information. USF defended their actions to Fox News and the Department of Education’s Clery Unit, who was also notified of USF’s failure to report the burglaries, by claiming the news was kept quiet because the matter involved Homeland Security. USF restated its single-record theory, and the USFPD simply noted the burglary, however inconspicuously, in its logs.

Concerning the burglary that occurred at the College of Engineering, Keith Ninemire, the investigator assigned by the Department of Education’s Clery Unit, noted the following: “I am reviewing the case and want to find out more about the Engineering burglary. I have a copy of the crime logs from USF and I cannot find a burglary at the College of Engineering for any dates around the 27th of June in 2015.” The Department of Education, like the FBI and Broward County Sheriff’s Department, dropped the ball on this one. The DOE dismissed the whistleblower’s complaint, simply because USF Police did not log this crime into their log book, and despite having evidence that the suspect was an engineering major who had stolen transcript paper and other items from the Registrar’s Office and very likely items from the building where he also attended classes – the Engineering Department. The DOE also had an eyewitness who told them that USF Police Officer Brian Pearson was the person who had shared with him that the College of Engineering had also been burglarized. This should have come as no surprise to them, because the USF Police also did not report the burglary at the Registrar’s Office until they were forced to do so in response to a whistleblower’s complaint.

I think that the University of South Florida should have been fined and punished for violating Clery Law, like other universities have been for serious failures and omissions. What do you think? Let me know your opinion in the Poll posted below.

POLL: Should USF have been fined by the Department of Education for violating the Clery Act, or held to greater accountability by our State’s leaders?

POLL: Should USF change its MO (modus operandi) or ways of operating to notify students of crimes committed on campus or near the campus?

USF declined comment to this story. Their viewpoint is no harm, no foul. USF had no way to know this since the USFPD missed the opportunity to question the suspect who was caught on video before he fled the country. If the USF would have peeled back the layers of the onion just a little bit, they would have realized they dodged a bullet. The suspect's Facebook page shows he was an Engineering major at USF. Possibly, he had a motive for breaking into the College of Engineering building. The suspect's Twitter Page shows he could have posed a danger to USF students, faculty, staff, and the Tampa Bay community. He was suspected of committing two crimes. He was still at large after commission of the crimes. He fled the country. Two of the crimes were serious enough for the Florida State Attorney's Office to charge the suspect with a Felony Burglary.

SEE THE SUSPECT'S TWITTER PROFILE AS IT APPEARED THREE YEARS AGO, POSTED BELOW FOR YOUR REVIEW.

‎• Photographer & Reporter ‎‪@OnehasMedia‬‎ in the USA | USF Student trying to end this world through revolution, while enjoying the technology | وبسم الله Syria | Saudi

Tweet that the suspect favorited on Twitter: @my2007klan: How I feel when life hands me lemons... http://t.co/jh2MrnoDGF

@AboSohaib: @my2007klan Make sure u finish ur degree and leave the country before the smoke covers the US land :p

‎• A human Being. Successful..Well, I think. Capable of great many things… Yet I get distracted easi Syria | Saudi | America

The only thing that has changed about the suspect is that he’s now using an alias last name – from Hussein three years ago to Alhaj. Folks, It wouldn’t surprise me one bit, if this guy isn’t once again attending USF-INTO under his new name, and with their blessing too.

This bears repeating, public accountability demands that school officials be more concerned about student welfare than covering their own asses, as USF did back in 2015 and are still doing now.

Let me know your opinion in the poll posted below. ‬ POLL: After reading the twitter page, would you have contacted the authorities?

It goes even deeper.

Though I’ve never been a teacher, I’ve had relatives and friends who are, and they’ve all said that they are generally not allowed to fail students. The reason is another money issue. Better grades mean more money.

Yes to the poll —USF should have been held accountable by the DOE for its actions. These people have more scandals and lawsuits, that something definitely should be done about them. HOUSE CLEANING PLEASE!
Yes—the student clearly posed a possible DANGER to the students, and this was mishandled by the USF Police and all the way up the ranks (meaning the Provost).

Excellent story! It’s a shame that USF didn’t receive more negative press from this, or get fined because they had it coming! It just makes you wonder why the DOE did nothing! Perhaps, they are just as corrupt as the FBI! It’s quite they violated the Clery Act, and why the DOE let them get a way with it is curious. Maybe because it happened during the dirty Obama era, and under Obama the government was zealous about protecting Muslims, even radical Muslim terrorists-types. There is a God who exposes the dirt and corruption of every institution and person. Jesus - “there is nothing hidden that shall not be revealed.”

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