To those who say whistleblowers are only interested in the money a settlement can bring, meet Devin English. An assistant professor in the Department of Urban-Global Public Health in Rutgers’ School of Public Health, English made headlines when his 2019 qui tam suit against Hunter College and a former professor was recently settled.
Taken together, Hunter and City University of New York (CUNY) of which it is a part, and the professor paid the Unite States government more than a half-million dollars and admitted to violating the False Claims Act (FCA) related to misuse of NIH funds awarded to Hunter’s Center for HIV Educational Studies (CHEST). English hopes the settlement will shine a light on misspending—and inadequate spending—for those “devastated” by HIV/AIDS.
“While this legal action represents a critical step in holding their fraud accountable, we must do more to make sure federal HIV/AIDS resources are going to those who need them most,” English told RRC. “Institutions have an ethical responsibility to ensure that grant funds, particularly those meant to treat illness among marginalized communities, actually go towards that vital work.”
The Southern District of New York (SDNY), which handled the case, requires individuals and entities to admit wrongdoing as a condition for settlement, an SDNY spokesperson confirmed in an email to RRC.
Hunter College and former professor Jeffrey T. Parsons-Hietikko agreed to pay the government $200,000 and $375,000, respectively, SDNY announced Jan. 30.[1] SDNY included the settlement agreements between the parties as well as the original complaint in its announcement. Parsons-Hietikko was a psychology professor and director of CHEST. Hunter’s settlement agreement does not indicate if the $200,000 includes a penalty. According to Parsons-Hietikko’s settlement agreement, half of his payment is restitution; half appears to be a penalty.
The settlement amounts pale in comparison to the original demand of $4.5 million that is written on the cover sheet for English’s suit and are less than those in a similar case.[2] The SDNY spokesperson would not answer RRC’s question as to the basis of the settlement amounts, nor would Hunter and CUNY. Parsons-Hietikko’s attorney did not respond to RRC’s requests for comment.
Travel Included Seven Scuba Trips
From Jan. 1, 2010, through May 17, 2018, Parsons-Hietikko spent NIH award funds for “expenses related to scuba diving trips, international flights for his family, a tropical birthday celebration, and travel for his work as a private consultant,” the SDNY announcement said. NIH funds were also used to pay for “alcohol at CHEST-related events.”
Parsons-Hietikko’s agreement states he violated the FCA when he “(1) failed to disclose his ownership of Mindful Designs, a company subcontracted to perform services paid for with NIH funds; (2) submitted duplicative and inflated invoices for services performed on NIH grants; (3) submitted false timekeeping records that misrepresented the time and effort that grant funded staff spent working on NIH grants; and (4) improperly invoiced personal expenses to NIH grants.”
More specifically, Parsons-Hietikko sought reimbursement from indirect costs funds for scuba trips to the Cayman Islands, Bonaire, Cuba, Costa Rica, Fiji, Cozumel and Belize, and to Cape Town, South Africa, Denver, Chicago and Los Angeles. None of the trips had a research purpose but were for personal travel or outside consulting work performed by Parsons-Hietikko and other CHEST staff.
Some, if not all, of the trips were paid for by Hunter using NIH grant funds. Parsons-Hietikko resigned from Hunter in 2018 following claims of sexual assault and a finding he had violated various policies.
Hunter College admitted it used NIH funds to pay Parsons-Hietikko $90,000 “in retention bonuses without disclosing these payments to NIH as required” and “submitted false timekeeping records that misrepresented the time that CHEST staff spent working on NIH grant-related projects, resulting in the use of NIH grant funds to compensate CHEST staff for work performed for private clients.”
Suit Proceeds to Benefit ‘Those Doing the Work’
English’s portion of the settlement is $120,750—which he planned to donate to three charities, according to court documents. English was a postdoctoral researcher at CHEST and Hunter College from 2017 to 2019. He said the suit was filed under seal in early 2019; English joined Rutgers in August of that year.
RRC asked English to comment on the settlement terms, especially given the original $4.5 million figure. “For years, HIV/AIDS funds have been wasted by individuals and institutions like Jeffrey Parsons and Hunter College, instead of reaching the LGBTQ+ communities being devastated by the public health crisis,” English said.
“My motivation from the beginning has been to ensure that funds that were meant to support the communities most affected by HIV/AIDS—and that instead were squandered by Jeffrey Parsons and Hunter College on luxury vacations, fraud schemes, and bloated bonuses—finally reached them,” English added. “That includes the Black-, Latinx-, and trans and gender expansive communities that have historically been underfunded by the government while Parsons and Hunter College brought in millions that they then misappropriated.”
Without identifying the charities, English said his funds “are going to Black-, Latinx-, and trans-run LGBTQ+ community organizations…actually doing the work to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic.”
CUNY: ‘Substantial Measures’ Adopted
A CUNY spokesperson told RRC it has made changes in recent years as a result of the federal investigation into Parsons-Hietikko’s “misuse of research funds” and said officials “cooperated fully” with the government.
“Hunter is pleased that a settlement has been reached,” CUNY’s statement said. While it blamed Parsons-Hietikko, saying he “betrayed the public trust and caused considerable harm to CHEST’s staff,” CUNY officials said the “investigation also exposed internal oversight weaknesses at Hunter.”
To address these, “in the last six years, CUNY’s Board of Trustees and Administration have taken substantial measures to ensure appropriate and accountable use of funds, at Hunter and elsewhere,” the statement said. “These measures include establishing term limits” at programs like CHEST. Under an April 2021 policy, directors are limited to a maximum of two five-year terms and are subject to “additional oversight.”
In 2017, CUNY’s Board of Trustees adopted new guidelines for its foundation “to address changes in the law and to strengthen requirements for governance, accountability, transparency and financial controls.”
CUNY also implemented a new “Protocol for Reporting Allegations of Corruption, Fraud, Criminal Activity, Conflicts of Interest or Abuse” in January 2020.[3] The policy was created to ensure reporting of inappropriate behaviors and events are reported to the New York inspector general. CUNY “remains committed to upholding the highest ethical and professional standards across CUNY and its 25 campuses,” the statement said.