Former Financial Aid Director Sentenced for Embezzling Student Funds

The former Director of Financial Aid at J. Sargent Reynolds Community College (JSRCC) was sentenced this week to more than five years in prison for orchestrating a scheme that federal authorities described as a “monumental betrayal of the public trust.”

Kiesha Pope, age 48, “used her sensitive government position to enrich herself to the detriment of the public trust and the students she was meant to serve,” embezzling at least $230,850 in federal and state student loan funds, though losses may exceed $397,602.

According to the indictment, Pope was implicated in a scheme to defraud the Department of Education (ED), the Commonwealth of Virginia, and Reynolds of educational funds between 2011 through 2017. Court documents indicate that Pope used her financial aid office access to fabricate or boost the eligibility of various individuals, including friends and family members, ineligible for financial aid. The majority of the funds were then sent to Pope by at least four co-conspirators. Her personal expenses included a Disney Cruise Line vacation, retail shopping, and expenses for her daughter.

To execute the scheme, Pope overrode the JSRCC's internal automated controls to guarantee that her co-conspirators would continue to receive financial aid. For instance, Pope obtained financial aid for her son from 2011 through 2017, even though he was not enrolled. A second instance involved Pope procuring financial aid for her ex-fiancé, a purported student at Reynolds, while he was incarcerated.

She falsely denied having a relationship with her co-conspirators when JSRCC leadership confronted her about it in September 2017. Pope then falsified supporting documentation to substantiate the high financial aid amounts she had facilitated for her co-conspirators. Another of Pope's deceptions involved forging medical documents demonstrating her goddaughter was failing to meet academic eligibility due to a breast cancer diagnosis, even though her goddaughter did not have breast cancer.

JSRCC leadership again confronted Pope in October 2017 about her relationship with various academically ineligible students receiving high amounts of financial aid. Once again, Pope lied, claiming that she was unaware of the students, even though they were his son, goddaughter, and cousin.

When asked for documentation to support this financial aid structuring, Pope abruptly resigned.

U.S. District Court Judge David J. Novak in the Eastern District of Virginia sentenced Pope to 63 months on an early guilty plea of wire fraud. As a result, the sentence is at the top of the discretionary federal sentencing guidelines, which call for an active prison term of 51 to 63 months.

The initial charges against Pope included conspiracy to commit wire fraud, wire fraud, and aggravated identity theft, each carrying a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison, and for the latter, a mandatory two-year sentence that runs concurrently with the other sentence.

The U.S. Department of Education Office of Inspector General (ED-OIG), Federal Bureau of Investigation's (FBI) Richmond Field Office, and the Inspector General for the Commonwealth of Virginia investigated the case.