The former admissions director for the Brandeis School of Law, University of Louisville, has been indicted in a case brought by the university, on a charge of unlawfully accessing a university computer.
Brandon Lane Hamilton had made headlines last year, after it was found that the Brandeis School of Law had awarded more than $4 million in scholarships to students, even though the budget for 2012 had $1.68 million for the purpose.
University spokesman Mark Hebert had said last year that the university would stand by promises already made to students because it was “the right thing to do.” The law school is able to make up the losses with endowment funds and other funds.
Hamilton had worked in the university for 10 years and at the law school for four years without any incident.
According to the criminal complaint against Hamilton, he did not make any profit from the scheme, and there was no scope to make any profit, but he accessed university computers without authority and arbitrarily raised scholarship amounts for students.
He caused the law school immense harm as it is against the model of business, beyond budgets, and beyond logic, to increase scholarships for incoming law students.
Hamilton, illegally, arbitrarily, and without any way to make a personal profit from the thing (which of course, makes the crime more heinous than most) increased the scholarship amounts. A typical grant of $4,000 a year was increase to close to $10,000 by Hamilton.
A university audit concluded in March claims that the signature of the faculty chair may have been forged in some instances. The complaint alleges, university records were destroyed, and access to the computer was tinkered with.
Hamilton is currently admissions director for the National College of Natural Medicine in Portland, Oregon.