The university fully cooperated with requests by attorneys for documents and information regarding former trustee Thomas Delanty, said Greg Orwig, director of university communications.
Delanty was arrested on charges of theft from Nancy Huegli, a 92-year-old woman, in 2006.
In December, a King County Superior Court jury found Delanty guilty of 26 first- and second-degree counts of thefts from Huegli. He was sentenced to five years in prison and reported to the Washington Corrections Center in Shelton, Wash., at the end of January.
“We are deeply sorry for the victim and the victim’s family,” Orwig said.
Delanty served on the Board of Trustees for eight years before opting out of reelection in 2005. During his time on the board, he served as chair of the endowment committee.
Orwig said he first became aware of the charges that Huegli filed against Delanty after he was contacted by a reporter from The Seattle Times.
“We were caught by surprise about Delanty’s activities with regards to his victims,” Orwig said.
When Orwig knew that the article was coming out in The Seattle Times, he communicated with alumni, donors and parents in western Washington to alert them about the article and to notify them that he was prepared to answer any questions they may have.
At the time Delanty was elected to the board, the school did not run criminal background checks on new trustees.
The school did not know about Delanty’s 1983 conviction for federal mail fraud in Oregon. He spent 60 days in prison out of a year-long sentence, The Seattle Times reported in January 2007.
Delanty also told Whitworth administrators and fellow trustees that he had earned degrees from Harvard University and Dartmouth College, managed 37 different companies in the United States and abroad and held the titles of CEO of a business in France, a small CPA practice and a CFP or managing partner in several of his businesses, according to court records.
However, according to court records, Delanty never earned a degree from Harvard. He also did not manage several of the companies he said he did.
In 2006, the university created a new policy of running criminal background checks on all potential employees, including members of the Board of Trustees.
“We are increasingly more careful about the process of voting in new board members,” Burns said in a November interview with The Whitworthian. “We take more time to get to know them and their character.”
Orwig said the Delanty case underscored the importance of doing background checks on trustees.
“We certainly take responsibility for not having those things in place,” he said. “At the time, it was unusual for schools our size to do background checks on trustees.”
He said the school had begun to conduct background checks on some employees before the Delanty case and was figuring out how to implement them for other employees and trustees.
“Others say they’ve been victimized by Delanty,” Orwig said. “We have been victimized by his deception as well.”
Contact Julie Wootton at julie.wootton@whitworthian.com.
School more cautious after case
Published: Monday, March 9, 2009
Updated: Monday, March 9, 2009
Be the first to comment on this article!