United States v. Moshe Porat, et al.

Description:

On November 29, 2021, a federal jury convicted Moshe Porat, the former dean of Temple University’s Richard J. Fox School of Business and Managements (“Fox”), of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of wire fraud. The charges arose from evidence that Porat devised an executed a scheme, and conspired to devise and execute a scheme, to defraud Fox applicants, students and donors out of money by providing false and misleading information to U.S. News & World Report and other media organizations that publish annual rankings of the nation’s top business schools and business degree programs (the “Rankings Publications”). From at least 2010 until at least July 2018, Porat directed subordinates at Fox to provide false information to the Rankings Publications in order to inflate their rankings of Fox’s online MBA program (“OMBA”), part-time MBA program (“PMBA”), executive MBA program (“EMBA”), and traditional or “global” MBA program.  From at least July 2014 until at least July 2018, Porat had at least two co-conspirators: former Fox professor Isaac Gottlieb and former Fox employee Marjorie O’Neill, agreed to provide and did provide false information to U.S. News.

Porat and his co-conspirators provided false information to the Rankings Publications about statistical data relating to Fox students, including the number of Fox OMBA and PMBA students who had taken the Graduate Management Admissions Test, the average grade point averages of incoming students, the average work experience of PMBA students, the number of students enrolled in the PMBA program, the average indebtedness of recent graduates, and the number of Fox applicants who received offers of admission. U.S. News relied on these false and misleading representations and ranked Fox’s OMBA program Number 1 in the country four years in a row; U.S. News also ranked Fox’s PMBA program as high as Number 7 in 2017.  Porat marketed the fraudulently-inflated rankings to potential Fox applicants, students, and donors in order to obtain money from them.

United States v. Moshe Porat

Criminal Docket Number:  21-CR-00170

Attachment:  porat_indictment.pdf

Events:

• Trial – On November 29, 2021, a federal jury convicted Moshe Porat, the former dean of Temple University’s Richard J. Fox School of Business and Managements (“Fox”), of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of wire fraud
• Sentencing – The sentencing hearing for Moshe Porat is currently scheduled for March 11, 2022.  We will continue to provide updated case scheduling and event information as it becomes available.

• On March 11, 2022, defendant Moshe Porat was sentenced by the Court.  The Court ordered the defendant to the following: 

                Incarceration of 14 months

                Followed by Supervised Release of three years

                Fines in the amount of $250,000