Craig S. Morford
United States Attorney
Samuel G. Williamson
Assistant United States Attorney
FORMER PROFESSOR AT TENNESSEE STATE UNIVERSITY
PLEADS GUILTY TO FELONY FALSE STATEMENT CHARGE
Nashville, Tennessee May 1, 2007 - Barbara Nye, a former professor at Tennessee State University, entered a guilty plea to a federal felony charge of making false statements to the National Science Foundation.
Nye entered a guilty plea before United States District Judge Aleta Trauger in response to a superseding information charging her with presenting a false travel claim to the National Science Foundation (“NSF”). Specifically, Nye admitted that during 2003, she was the director of the Center of Excellence at Tennessee State University (“TSU”). As part of her work at TSU, she was the Principal Investigator, or head administrator, of a multimillion dollar grant from the National Science Foundation (“NSF”) known as a “Local Systemic Change” (“LSC”) grant. The TSU LSC grant included funds to hire employees known as “Teachers In Residence” (“TIRs”), who were expected to spend all of their time working on the TSU LSC grant.
At the same time, Nye was the lead evaluator for a different NSF grant at the University of Alabama-Huntsville (“UAH”). This evaluation project was separate from her work at TSU and she was paid consulting fees separate from her TSU salary. In April 2003, Nye sent two TIRs to UAH to work on her evaluation of the UAH grant. The work that the TIRs did at UAH was not part of their work on the TSU LSC grant. However, the TIRs were not aware that this work was not part of their regular employment on the TSU LSC grant and submitted a travel claim to TSU, which was paid with NSF funds. The defendant presented this travel claim to TSU, knowing that it was for travel that was not related to the NSF grant and that it would be paid with NSF funds. As a result, the claim was false.
In addition, Nye admitted that her false statements and other conduct caused a loss to the government of more than $10,000. Moreover, Nye further admitted that she abused positions of trust, specifically her job as director of the Center of Excellence and her position as Principal Investigator on the TSU LSC grant, in committing the offense to which she pled guilty.
United States Attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee Craig S. Morford responded to Nye’s guilty plea by commenting, “Great trust and discretion is placed in the people chosen to administer large federal grants, and the grant system cannot work unless those people handle the public’s money and their own responsibility in an honest manner. In this case, the defendant willfully misused federal grant funds, and the false statement charges and her guilty plea are appropriate responses to her criminal conduct.”
Nye is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge Trauger on July 30, 2007 at 1:30 p.m.
This investigation was conducted by the National Science Foundation’s Office of the Inspector General. Assistant U.S. Attorney Samuel G. Williamson led the prosecution on behalf of the Government.