College financial aid director got her jailed boyfriend $80,000 in student aid, feds say
The former director of financial aid at a Virginia community college was accused of nepotism after prosecutors said she manipulated applications on behalf of family and friends to maximize money they received from the government — and kept about half of it for herself.
Now she faces federal charges.
A grand jury indicted 47-year-old Kiesha Pope on wire fraud and identity theft charges in the Eastern District of Virginia on Tuesday, Feb. 1, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said in a news release. Court filings show an arrest warrant was issued the same day.
Pope could not be reached for comment by McClatchy News on Wednesday, Feb. 2, and information regarding her defense attorney was not immediately available.
Prosecutors said the alleged scheme spanned several years while Pope was director of financial aid at J. Sargent Reynolds Community College in Richmond, Virginia. The college has three campuses as well as an online program. It enrolled nearly 5,500 full-time students in the 2018-2019 school year.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Reynolds Community College said the school has cooperated with federal investigators and is in full compliance with the U.S. Department of Education to continue administering financial aid.
“Leadership of the Reynolds Financial Aid Office, as well college leaders responsible for its oversight during the time frame referenced, are no longer employed at Reynolds,” the spokesperson said. “New leadership of the financial aid office has been in place since March of 2018 and has worked diligently to ensure the integrity of all aspects of our financial aid operations.”
According to the indictment, Pope agreed to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, also known as FAFSA, on behalf of friends and family members while ensuring they continued to meet eligibility requirements.
In exchange, she received a portion of the refunds in the form of checks, PayPal payments and prepaid cards, prosecutors said. Pope is estimated to have received roughly half the total refund amount each person was awarded, which the government said she spent on car repairs, shopping trips and expenses for her daughter.
The recipients she allegedly helped included her son, goddaughter, ex-fiance and cousin.
From 2011 to 2017, Pope’s son received $117,708 in refund disbursements from financial aid, the indictment states. He reportedly did not attend any classes at Reynolds Community College for at least two of those years. It is not clear if he attended the community college in other years.
Pope’s former fiance received about $79,906 between 2011 and 2015, despite spending several of those months in the Sussex County Jail, prosecutors said. Between 2013 and 2015, her cousin also received more than $60,000 in refunds.
Her goddaughter was awarded about $43,525 in refunds from 2011 to 2017, prosecutors said. Pope is also accused of inflating her disbursement amounts at various points by making manual entries into the financial aid system, which eventually caught the attention of the college’s central business office.
In a 2017 email sent to someone who worked under Pope, the office questioned “how in the world (she) qualified for the amount of aid she received the last three semesters while only enrolling in 3-6 credits,” according to the indictment. No one in the office reportedly knew at the time that she was Pope’s goddaughter.
Prosecutors said Pope replied that the student had breast cancer and that’s why she was approved for such a large amount of financial aid, which Pope said she needed because of “extremely high medical bills.”
Still, the central business office reportedly said it was an “odd combination” of financial aid, few enrollment credits and a very low grade point average.
About a month later, prosecutors said, Pope’s boss confronted her about whether she had any relation to the student.
Pope replied no, prosecutors said, then immediately scanned several documents into the financial aid system that backed up her story about the student having cancer. According to the indictment, hospital records showed Pope was lying about the diagnosis, and the documents she used were from another student’s file.
By October 2017, higher-ups were questioning Pope’s relationship with several students who had received a significant amount of financial aid during her tenure.
Pope never showed up for work on Oct. 4, 2017, and submitted her resignation the following day, prosecutors said.
A grand jury indicted Pope on charges of conspiring to commit wire fraud, wire fraud and aggravated identity theft. If convicted, she faces up to 20 years in prison on the fraud charges and a mandatory two-year prison sentence for identity theft, though prosecutors said a defendant’s sentence is typically less than the maximum.
This story was originally published February 2, 2022 at 11:26 AM with the headline "College financial aid director got her jailed boyfriend $80,000 in student aid, feds say."
